The New Mabel Adventures
by New Yorktown
Summary: Having traveled back to Gravity Falls to reunite with her brother, Mabel Pines finds herself left alone again when Dipper willingly steps into the new portal he and his mentor Stanford built together. Now she'll have to fight against loose ends and new threats bereft of the power of her twin bond. A sequel to "Three Can Keep A Secret."
1. Mabel Gets Kidnapped

On the day that it happened, it happened to rain on top of everything else.

Mabel Pines had gone for a walk that day, driven by a lack of an immediate distraction inside her then current reach back at the Shack. The journey through the town proved to be a lamentation of her failing summer dreams, as she passed by all the places she had planned to visit again with her twin brother Dipper at her side. After the first few times where she stood hesitantly outside the business of fun and then realized she lacked the energy to go in alone, Mabel stopped bothering, simply casting the place a glance while continuing to walk. Her sweater, a bright pink piece with a rainbow wrapping around the whole torso of it, was strangely inappropriate on the dreary lakeside day, despite doing an excellent job insulating her from the chill.

Dipper had been gone, willingly stepped through the portal of his great uncle's design, for several days at this point. Mabel had reached the shore of the town's lake and was gazing across the calm water while seated on a rock when she really began to lament this fresh loss. _"After all those years of waiting through high school, trying my hardest until I could see my brother again, and as soon as I get here he's off through a portal, adventuring around the multiverse." _She thought to herself with a miserable air, skipping a rock across the water. _"I should have stayed in California, we were closer to each other then than we are now."_

_"Sometimes it seems like he just wants to get away from me. As soon as I'm ready to finally be the best big sister that Dipper always deserved, he just up and vanishes on me! I've been great at making friends all my life... so why can't I be friends with the one person who means the most to me?" _She continued to think while getting a slight flash of frustration across her face. _"...I hate that portal." _Mabel thought to herself, inwardly realizing she was crossing a line but unable to help it. _"It took my brother away from me, just like it took Grunkle Stan's away from him."_

That was the moment the first rain drop tapped Mabel on the nose. Blinking in surprise, the girl was roused from her thoughts as the gentle hiss of the rain falling began to build up around her and drops sent ripples across the water. It was all very gentle for the moment, but was visibly speeding up over time. "Oh come on! It's gotta rain too!?" Mabel yelled with frustration. "Why am I dealing with this all of sudden!? It never rains on Gravity Falls!"

Distantly, the Pines girl did have a hazy memory of her mother instructing her and her brother to back all their jackets and sweaters, as well as providing Mabel with a pastel pink umbrella she'd ended up never using, citing that Oregon was a very rainy state, unlike California, and the twins needed to be prepared for their trip north. However, her clearer memories contradicted this, being clearer in that it was easier for her to remember all her adventures and clearer in the sense that exploring the supernatural never got rained out in all her experience.

Finding herself muttering angrily in a manner she used to associate exclusively with Dipper, Mabel got to her feet and began to shuffle back up the road away from the lake, looking to get out of the rain once she was back in town. "When did things start getting like this?" She asked aloud, to no one in particular. The weather forecast that predicted this rain had kept the crowds away from the lake today. "Why isn't my bubbly personality and good hearted intentions enough to get ahead in life anymore!?"

So caught up was she in this rage against the heavens was Mabel that she didn't notice the fact she had walked past a delivery van parked into the treeline just near the lake. She'd been similarly too caught up in her newfound taste for free-form brooding that she hadn't noticed the van earlier, when it split off the main road and parked itself there shortly after she had gone down the road to the lake.

As a result of all that adding up, Mabel was completely unprepared for when the men from the van threw a bag over her head and grabbed her by the arms.

"...LET ME GO! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT GRUNKLE STAN WILL DO TO YOU FOR THIS!? STRANGER DANGER!"

Mabel had fought and yelled the entire way, but the abductors had chosen their moment extremely well, and no one was around to hear her shouts. The teenage girl couldn't quite keep track of how long she'd been bagged for or where she'd been dragged to, as the loss of sight was disorientating and she was putting all her efforts into struggling to escape. She was, however, able to effectively realize when she was no longer being held with her hands behind her back, and wasted no time ripping the bag off her head.

As soon as sight returned to her, Mabel knew she was in the back of a van. An exceedingly similar back of the van to the van Dipper had, which Mabel would have found outrageously funny if she wasn't scared for her life. Standing in front of her, between herself and the back doors out, were two adult men dressed up in stereotypical fishing outfits, one of them completely obscured in the face between his low hanging floppy hat, dark sunglasses, and thick mustache, while the other seemed significantly less obscured despite only lacking the mustache. Mabel blinked for a moment, and not just as a result of her eyes adjusting. "Oh no, I know where this is going and I'm not having it!"

Right after saying that, Mabel rushed forward, planning to attack the kidnapper with the more visible face, which was bearing a blank but intense flat-eyebrow expression. After closing the distance between them, Mabel pulled her right leg back and kicked the man straight in the groin. When he didn't even flinch in response to this, the girl looked up at his unchanged face, looked down, then bent her leg back and kicked over and over again, slamming her foot into his crotch at an extremely strong and fast rate, and continuing to get no results from this action.

_"Oh no, this is all I learned how to do from that self-defense class, and it's not working!" _Mabel inwardly panicked, until she had her arms grabbed behind her back again and was pulled away. "Alright, that's enough. Calm down and we'll explain everything." The other man said while dragging Mabel back to the back of the van. After a long moment, a single tear rolled down the face of the man she'd kicked from beneath his sunglasses, who otherwise released no reaction to the attack.

Now backed up against the wall, Mabel didn't surge forward and attack again, as while her posture was still defensive and aggravated, her face contorted with a sudden look of curiosity. "Wait... do I know you guys?"

"I would hope you still do." The un-kicked man said bluntly, as the two removed their hats and sunglasses, the speaker revealing himself as an older man with mildly wrinkly skin, a large nose and thinning black hair.

"You tried to kill me once." The other one added, his lack of disguise revealing himself to be notably younger than his partner, though still an adult by at least a decade, with a fuller head of light brown hair, a small nose and bright, beady eyes.

Mabel stood still for a moment, eyes squinting and finger on her chin, looking significantly less afraid now. "...Not fully coming back to me, but I'm feeling really close to it..."

"You tried to KILL me once!" The brunette spoke up again, an obviously practiced facade of calm audibly cracking a slight amount, seemingly from indignity.

"Well, even if you don't remember us, we remember you Mabel Pines." The leader of the two responded while retrieving an ID card from inside the pocket of his fishing vest. "Agent Powers and Agent Trigger. Your government wants to have a chat with you."

Realization quickly set in on the Pines Twin as she looked back and forth between the two with wide eyes. "Oooooh, right. You guys. How's... how's it hanging?" She asked nervously, but soon after perked up with a fresh realization. "Hey, wait, this means you guys aren't pedophiles, right?"

"No." Agent Powers answered wearily.

"SILVER LINING! SILVER LINING!" Mabel cheered, while pumping her fists over her head. After a moment though, she asked them, with a more worried expression. "So, what's going on then? Why am I being invited to a party in the CIA?"

"That's classified, but I suspect you'll get a full explanation soon enough." Powers answered with a slightly weary sounding tone, then lifted his watch up and talked into it. "Move out." He stated, and the van started rolling right after. Mabel jostled around in surprise at first, but soon enough she and the agents were standing reasonably steady with their fingers wrapped around roof mounted hand grips.

The van moved through the streets of Gravity Falls with steady, professional speed and handling, an unremarkable drive that would draw no attention. The ride in the back was quiet and awkward between all parties. Mabel looked to the side and finally noticed the bag that had been thrown over her head and was now discarded on the floor was one of those reusable types that supermarkets started selling to cut down on plastic use, but which even the most well-meaning and dedicated shoppers forget to bring with them when they go shopping, resulting in plastic being used anyways. It was labeled with the logo of the local Tons Grocery Store. With nothing else going on, Mabel decided to try and tell a joke

"So, hey, what do you call it when one cow spies on another?" The girl asked the two agents, grinning with that sort of look of anticipating present when a joke teller wants to hear their own answer more than the people they're telling the joke to.

"A sign that DARPA has been taking too much inspiration from the Acoustic Kitty." Powers responded. Casual observers would be forgiven for thinking that was a snarky comeback meant to shoot down Mabel's response, but the teenage girl had remembered enough of his humorless personality to know that those words were a completely genuine and straightforward answer to her rhetorical question that the agent genuinely believed.

_"Yesh, tough crowd. I'm glad I didn't ask them what an FBI agent uses for birth control." _The girl thought to herself.

"Despite my partner's inability to understand humor, it's clear to me you're using it as a copping mechanism for the stressful situation you are in." Agent Trigger spoke up, maintaining a neutral tone. "I can assure you we simply want to ask a few questions, that's all."

"Well... THANKS! I guess." Mabel responded, before looking uncertain briefly. "Um, look, I'm not sure if this is an awkward question or not, but could, well, remind me... when did I try and kill you again?"

Agent Trigger had the same expression that was always on his face, but blinked a few times before responding to the question. "I was trying to take you and your brother into child protective services in order to keep you away from your criminal great uncle." He explained flatly. "While we were traveling you instigated a truck driving redneck into ramming me off the road and caused the vehicle to roll over multiable times."

"Oooooh right, that time!" Mabel spoke, mostly to herself, as the memory came back to her. Putting on a strained smile and looking at the two agents, she tried to explain herself. "Well, actually I wasn't TRYING to kill you in that spot, me and Dipper just needed to get away was all. So... no hard feelings?"

"Over 37,000 people are killed in car accidents a year." Trigger stated bluntly.

"Uh... sorry?" Mabel asked, but abruptly felt her breath catch in her throat as the numbers added up in her head. "How do you remember that happening?"

At that moment however, the van came to a stop, causing all conversation inside it to die as well. Mabel stepped forward, a little nervousness returning, but covering it by remarking "Alright, let's see your guys' secret lair/man cave." but Powers stopped her with an upheld hand.

"The base itself is still top secret. Agent Trigger, bag her up again." Powers ordered, and despite rolling her eyes at this Mabel didn't resist as the shopping bag was put back over her head. She could hear the back doors of the van open before being carefully led out of the vehicle, forward a few steps, and into what was probably an elevator based on the sensation she felt after standing in place for a moment. Then, to Mabel's surprise, the bag came off. With an annoyed expression, she asked "Are you kidding me?" to no reply.

A very short moment later, the elevator door opened, into what was almost certainly a basement given the complete lack of light and the fact that the elevator had been traveling downwards. The basement seemed to consist of a single dark computer room, about the size of the table room over at the Mystery Shack's basement and illuminated only by the blues and yellows radiating off the wall to wall collection of computer servers installed down here. Across the room from the elevator door was a singular desk, fairly modest looking. It had two chair pulled up to it, one on either side, and the further one from Mabel was turned around, back to the visitors, when the three arrived.

Mabel crossed the room in short order, one agent on each side of her. After a quiet, uncomfortable moment sitting in the empty chair with Powers and Trigger standing with stoic professionalism to either side of her, the third man behind the desk turned around at a soft pace to look Mabel face to face.

He was older than Trigger but younger looking than Powers, though it was distinctly possible this new operative had simply aged more gracefully. He was clean cut, not a pluck of his rusty red hair inhabiting his face, though despite the hair on his head being well combed back he still had a few lose strands that curled and popped out of hair cut in seemingly random places. He was wearing the same sort of generic but distinctive black suit the agents use when not in disguise, but in contrast to their perpetually stiff and professional expressions had a softer face, even smiling a little as he turned around and locked eyes with his visitor, along with a pair of conspicuous black gloves. "Mabel Pines, so good to see you!" He said in a charming tone, extending a hand to her, his other hand holding a lit cigar in it. "It's always a pleasure to meet a member of the Pines family face to face, I'm a big fan of the work you all do. Care for a smoke?" He explained, offering the cigar to her after withdrawing from the handshake.

"Um, not a smoker, thank you though." Mabel responded, a little confused by his friendly attitude. Without hesitation or comment, the new agent placed the cigar on an ashtray then placed the ashtray in a drawer. "So, what's going on, exactly? Why have you brought me here?"

"Ah, a direct attitude, I appreciate that!" The man complemented before leaning in a little and beginning to explain. "Well, to start with, how about an introduction? My name is Ferris, no last names for now, not sure if I still have one if I'm being honest you... They tell you that one day you'll be able to go back and use your real name again but one thing after another comes up and soon enough you're dreaming of being a butterfly named Ferris instead of a man..."

"Uh, excuse me?" Mabel spoke up. "Still waiting to know why you had me kidnapped."

"Oh, of course, I apologize." Ferris answered, seemingly genuinely distracted by his little tangent. "Well, first off, sorry about the kidnapping. You know how it is, secrets and protocols and all that other nonsense. If everything goes well you and your whole family will be able to use the front door from here on out!" He continued, before more clearly explaining that "I want to propose a partnership between the Pines Family and Project TWILIGHT!"

At the announcement, Agent Powers seemed to shift uncomfortably in his place. Even though he didn't saw anything, Ferris seemed to pick up on this movement and abruptly snapped at him "Oh spare me the protocol concerns, she already knows about the secret president, no harm in letting her in on a black project or two."

This seemed to generate a look of concern on Mabel's face though. "Wait, how do you know that I know that?" A bit of dread climbing up her spine.

"Oh, that's easy. We've been spying on you!" Ferris stated nonchalantly, causing Mabel to shiver visibly. If he noticed this, the agent didn't make mention of it. "We've been spying on your whole family for quite awhile actually, among others. Truth be told, we're actually all quite fond of you Pines. You all are basically an asset to us, unlike most of the creepy crawlers we keep bugged."

Getting deeply weirded out now, Mabel sank into her chair a little. "How long is quite awhile, really?"

"Quite awhile means quite awhile in this situation. Going all the way back to you Great Uncle Stanford, back when he was just Stanford." Ferris explained, getting out of his chair and striding towards a wall as if to look out a window, only to remember they were in a basement and sat down again. "It all started when Stanford decided he wanted to research... 'weirdness.' And went about asking for grant money to do so." The red head stated with a scoff. "Honestly, your great uncle is a brilliant man but has no idea how anything money related works. What kind of credible institution is going to give someone money to run around forests and look for gnomes? Back in that time period the space race was going on and there was no cure for erectile dysfunction! No one was going to fund gnome chasing!"

Despite her attempts to remain on guard, Ferris' crude, off hand remark did get a little giggle out of Mabel. "No one... except us, that is. Project TWILIGHT is the United States' top secret supernatural security organization, and we saw potential in your great uncle's work. We had some fronts in place, of course, but we always had a vague suspicion he knew more was going on. Particularly after we asked him to make that mind control necktie."

Abruptly remembering that object, Mabel let out a nervous laugh. "Right, that old thing..."

"By the way, on a personal note? You rigged that election like a champ!" Ferris complemented while leaning over the desk a little. When Mabel looked guilty in response rather than receptive, he leaned back and added "Now, don't go getting all guilt stricken on me here! What you and your brother did there was completely justified! Gideon had actively threatened you and Stanley wasn't making a serious effort to defeat him! Your actions on that day were unclouded, they were all those of justice!"

No longer feeling guilty, instead being severely creeped out by how much Ferris seemed to know, Mabel asked him to continue. "So, if you know all that much, you know what happened to Grunkle Ford, don't you?"

"Well, we thought we knew, but it turns out we didn't, but we know now that we didn't know and that we now know, so yes." Ferris explained, causing Mabel to blink a few times. "Basically, when Stanford fell through the portal, we were under the impression Stanley had murdered him in order to escape his life of crime, live somewhere more stable, get revenge on his estranged family, etc etc. At least, that was what all our psychological profiling led us to believe." While just the thought of one of the older twins killing the other visibly disgusted Mabel, Ferris just went on talking. "It was a few days after the actual switch when we realized what had happened. We knew Stanford had a brother thanks to background checks, and to be frank, Stanley's impression of him is flat out terrible. He got really luck most of the Pines Family was either out of touch or dead when he did that. With our asset gone, Operation TWILIGHT withdrew from Gravity Falls. I'm sure all his blue-sky research was intriguing and all, but we needed gadgets and weaponry, and it was clear Stanley wouldn't be able to pick up where his brother left off."

"So, when these two showed up to arrest Grunkle Stan..." Mabel wondered, only to cut off by Ferris.

"A coincidence, actually. Powers and Trigger here are legitimate FBI agents, or at least, they were until their recent transfer. Your great uncle has a laundry list of legitimate crimes you know. Everything from pug smuggling to counterfeiting to marijuana dealing." He explained with a slightly teasing tone of voice, causing Mabel to look surprised.

"Wait, marijuana dealing?" She asked with confusion. _"I don't remember him ever doing that."_

With a sardonic, condescending expression, Ferris remarked that "Mabel, your great uncle Stanley is a self-professed criminal who will do anything for money, lives in an isolated section of wilderness and is strangely tolerant of a bunch of lazy teenagers hanging around his place of business. Where do you think all those dear heads he has came from, and why do you think he always wanted you and Dipper to stay out of the woods?"

"He told me those were paper mache..." Mabel reeled with a hurt tone of voice.

"Nope! He shot those deer himself for trying to eat the pot plants he grows all over the forest, with his collection of varyingly legal guns." Ferris explained. "Why do you think the whole town was still on speaking terms with him even when they hated him for being a shifty con artist?"

"Huh." Mabel muttered with a tone of comprehension. "That explains a lot honestly. He has always been pretty spritely for someone so old."

"Anyways, when the FBI moved to arrest Stanley we were made aware of it due to having him flagged as a person of interest, but the sudden failure of the operation is when we actually got involved." Ferris resumed explaining. Behind his professional expression, the operative took a distinct sense of satisfaction at the look of unease his next words put on Mabel's face. "Surely you didn't think that memory trick would leave you completely in the clear? All the paperwork back at the HQ reminded those agents right away that they were there to arrest Stanford Pines. They could have swept back into town and arrested all of you at any time, but after losing their memories on a raid the team decided to fall into observation mode to plan a new attack. Luckily for you, that gave me time to get involved."

Reaching into the desk, Ferris produced a photograph and slid it across to Mabel, whose eyes widened as she looked at it. The image was blurry and oddly angled, but the content was unmistakable: It was a photo of the Pines Family, Ford included, sitting down to watch television. "My lost asset had returned, seemingly back from death! The FBI investigation was called off, and these two, the most senior agents on the investigation, were transferred to Project TWILIGHT. A regime of hypnotherapy was gradually returning all their valuable memories of your family, but before we could decide on a move, well..." The agent struggled for words for a moment before simply remarking "End of the world."

"Weirdmageddon." Mabel breathes guiltily.

"That's what you called it!" Ferris shouted with realization. "Thank goodness that news broadcast of yours was so local, we only had to track down and memory wipe about a dozen people to cover the whole thing up." He mused with a tone of remembrance. "And, of course, congratulations on stopping it! Every one of you deserves a medal if you ask me, I was this close to calling in a scorched earth USAF bombing on the whole thing when you put a stop to it. Unfortunately they don't give medals in this line of work."

While Ferris continued to wistfully recount this chain of events, Mabel felt more abject horror crawling up her back. _"The whole town... they were going to bomb the whole town to stop Bill..."_

"Anyways, from there, it's rather simple. Stanford is back and even has an apprentice, so both of them get marked as assets, and we simply observe them for a few years. Your brother's long chats with the Northwest girl make for excellent listening material. Very informative." By now, Ferris was leaning over his desk in a casual fashion. "Agent Trigger over there even ships them, cheeky boy."

"Negatory." Agent Trigger suddenly spoke up, keeping his expression completely frozen the whole time. "I ship the two we have under observation in California."

"Of course, my mistake." Ferris answered dismissively, but then went off on a bold, stirring speech. "And that's why we've decided now is the time to contact you Mabel! It seems like in the last decade the supernatural has started coming out of the woodwork: Strange monsters stalk the streets of LA, UFOs are flying over Delaware, a pyramid demon invaded Earth right here in Oregon, vampires are having street wars over sarcophagi and haunted houses full of ghost skeletons... They're emerging faster than our current resources can contain them, and as a result, it's time to harvest the fruits of Stanford's labor bolster our forces."

"What do you want me to do exactly?" Mabel asked, tensing up at this part. _"Here comes the part where I can't refuse..."_

"We want you to go to the Shack and retrieve two objects of value. After that, nothing at all, until we need something else. The psych profiles indicate your family will labor better under a delusion of independence." Ferris explained. "The objects in question are the body swapping carpet and the magic photocopier."

Mabel's memories automatically went back to her experiences with the two objects. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, she asked "And what happens if I refuse?"

"Oh, nothing."

Mabel blinked in surprise a few times before responding "Wait, nothing? Hey wait, is this one of those ironic setups where you stuff me in a jail cell and 'nothing' happens to me for decades and decades of..."

"No, I mean literally nothing will be done to you if you refuse." Ferris responded. "I'm still a government employee Mabel. Do you have any idea how much red tape comes from imprisoning people indefinitely? I mean, sure we do it, but it takes more paperwork than I have time for." He explained dismissively, with a mild hint of annoyance, before adding "Well, we will erase your memory of this meeting, but you'll be put back right where we go your from. From your perspective, nothing will have happened."

The teenage girl seemed visibly but pleasantly surprised by this. "Well, that's... relieving? I think?"

"Believe me, we only have one supermax black ops prison, and I'd much rather lock up another vampire than put you in there." Ferris added dismissively.

"Well, in that case, I refuse your offer." Mabel stated firmly. "Go ahead, bring out the flashy light on a stick and wipe my brain of the last hour."

Ferris, however, simply gave her a small smile, like he'd expected to hear her say that. "Now Mabel, don't be so rash. You haven't even heard about all the wonderful carrots I'm offering you."

"Nope." The teenage girl responded firmly. "I'm not going to betray my family like this."

"Hmm." Ferris muttered, looking troubled for a moment. "You didn't offer this much resistance last time. Did I forget the aftershave today?"

That casual line, delivered as softly as it was, still caused something in Mabel to break into a panic. The outer layer of refusal she'd tried to put on broke into a visible need to know. "What do you mean, last time!?" She demanded, despite having a pretty good idea what he meant.

"You agreed to this before, with one of the conditions being that we erase your memory of the mission and not discuss it at all with you beyond the fact you performed one for us." Ferris said, casually confirming Mabel's seconds old but intensely strong fears.

_"No, that's not possible! I'd never work for a creep like this to steal something from Dipper!" _She thought in a panic, but the longer she had to think about it, the more her thoughts on this changed. _"But I already did that once, didn't I? When Blendin asked me to steal The Rift..." _Looking down at her hands, Mabel couldn't help but wonder _"Did I really do it again? And did I erase my memory to hide from the shame of it?"_

"What are you offering me to do this?"

"For one, the offer of a memory wipe after the mission still stands." Ferris explained up front.

"No, I'm not doing that again. Whatever I do here, I'm keeping with me!"

"Yes, well, the last Mabel I talked to said that as well. If you change your mind, the option is always open." Ferris replied, causing a cold pit to sink into Mabel's stomach. "Well, as for a reward, well, what would you say if I offered you a little reunion?"

As her spoke, Ferris was pulling a laptop computer out of a drawer. After turning it on and finding what he was looking for on it, the agent turned it around so Mabel could see the screen, resulting in the girl letting out a surprised gasp.

"MERMANDO!"

Although he was older and even swarthier now, the merman was still recognizable as Mabel's most successful summer crush. The screen showed him floating sedate in a floor to ceiling glass tube that was barely wide enough to fit him and was full of water. His eyes were closed as he gently bobbed up and down a small amount, tubes fed into the glass container entering his body at the bare arms.

"Don't mind the whole setup, just a precaution you see." Ferris explained in an understanding voice. "This just ensures that if you opt to erase your memory at the end of the mission, we can arrange a happy little coincidence for you two to reunite with minimal fuss."

Mabel's eyes had gone wide and were even blurring a little at the sight. "Mermando... I never thought I'd see you again..." She breathed wistfully at the screen, before looking up at Ferris. "Where are you keeping him?"

"Now now, that would ruin the surprise." The government agent said back. "The only pertinent location for... Mermando (not the most creative parents, that one) is that he'll be right by your side... should you complete the mission we are offering you." Ferris then gave Mabel the most electric smile he could muster. "So, what do you say Mabel? Can you do ol' Uncle Sam a solid here?"

The computer room was quiet for a long moment. Even the stoic faces of Powers and Triggers seemed to falter for brief seconds as Mabel contemplated everything, first giving the girl a short look of sympathy before glancing at each other with worried expressions. When Mabel finally brought her expression up to look back at Ferris, she stated "Well then... just call me Secret Agent Mabel. I'm in." with much less goofy enthusiasm than you'd expect from her.

"Well then, we are in agreement! Wonderful!" Ferris announced, letting his chair roll backwards as he stood up. "Agents, stay here and mind the base. I'll show Miss... or, should I say... Agent Pines out!" He addressed to Powers and Trigger while using his gloved fingers to delicately shut the lid of his laptop and slid it into a desk drawer. "This way Mabel..." Ferris said, while gesturing to the elevator doors.

Mabel was on autopilot as stepped across the room and into the vertical travel box. _"I can't do this again, I can't steal from Dipper and Ford again... can I?" _She mused as the elevator began to climb. _"But this time is different! I'm not doing it for me, I'm doing it to save Mermando from these guys! They rub me the wrong way, getting maximum 'not friends' vibes off the whole group. I can't just let them erase my memory, I have to try and learn from this! I can't let them just spy on my family for any longer, but I'm sure they'll be watching me as I run this mission. Ding dong dang it Dipper, why do you have to be gone through the magic portal NOW of all times? ...I wonder though, did I do their first mission while he was gone? It could have happened yesterday for all I know. What did they ask me to steal, and how have they not noticed anything missing? Wait, they mentioned they cleared out a bunch of stuff while doing the autopsy, could that be when..."_

"...Agents Pines? We're here."

The voice of Ferris abruptly broke through Mabel's mental fog, as mildly condescending as it was, and the girl shook her head and returned to reality. "Ah, right. Sorry about that, just got a lot rattling around in the old noodle noggin right now, you know?"

"All too well!" Ferris responded with a chuckle. "First operation always goes like that. Never the less, the doors have been politely holding themselves open for almost a minute now, so..."

"Ah, right! Into the breach, and all that then!" Mabel responded, putting on a fake British accent to cover up how nervous she was. The two stepped out of the elevator, revealing that the room the girl had been dragged through with a bag on her head earlier was an incredibly nondescript garage that didn't even have windows. "Wow, much secret, must use bag." She remarked dryly.

"You get used to it." Ferris remarked, while pressing a discreetly hidden button that caused the drywall to slid in place over the elevator. He then swiftly crossed the room to retrieve an umbrella that was inside an umbrella holder next to a door that presumably led deeper into the building. "And here!" He said charitably as the umbrella passed from his hands to Mabel's, their mutually bare fingers almost touching. The close miss was still enough to send an almost electrical chill down the girl's spine. "That's not standard issue, but I think you'll need it today."

"Thanks." Mabel replied unenthusiastically, before Ferris pointed to a different door, the one that would lead her back to the streets of Gravity Falls. Opening it up revealed the agent was right about one thing, as the town had gotten significantly rainier and wind swept over the course of the kidnapping/job interview.

Taking one last look back the encouraging face of Agent Ferris, Mabel stepped onto the streets and popped open her umbrella, feeling like its wide cover and the insulating, thick layer of her green, pot of gold decorated sweater were the only things she could count on to shield her from the wind and the rain, and the cold both brought with them.

_**AUTHORS NOTES**_

_So, whose up for a little time back on Earth?_

_It was always my intention when I had the trio of Dipper, Ford and Pacifica step through the portal to Mewni to write a Mabel-starring adventure or two happening on Earth concurrently with the journey those three are going through, and now that some time has passed in "Three More Can Keep A Secret" I figured it was time to make it happen. The root of this story was a nagging feeling that the trick Ford pulled at the end of "A Tale of Two Stans" shouldn't have realistically got the government off their case permanently, but apparently it did. So now, Mabel must try to survive alone against the shadowy government conspiracy looking to exploit the power hidden in Gravity Falls, an opportunity for her to grow as a person and gain some experince. Also, I got to bring the Agents back into the story here. I always found them surprisingly endearing considering the archetype they play to._


	2. Mabel and the Mabels

Trudging through the wind and the rain on a slow journey back to the Mystery Shack, Mabel was lost in her own thoughts as she struggled to find a way out of the predicament she'd been placed in. Most citizens had vacated the streets of town in the face of the dour weather, letting her contemplate things without being disturbed.

_"I need to get Mermando back and keep those government goons from spying on my family anymore!" _She thought to herself again, trying to reaffirm her mission statement in the face of all the difficulties she had imagined while trying to plan. _"But they're gonna be the only ones who know where Mermando is stashed at, so if I just managed to memory wipe them with the old memory gun I wouldn't have gotten anywhere. Maybe I could wipe them, then find a way to review the memories later? Dipper probably has the equipment to do that somewhere around the Shack, though I've got no idea how to actually operate it..." _As this thought settled in, Mabel came to a stop as a new idea came over her.

_"Dipper..." _She thought to herself, facial expression making it clear she didn't know what to do at the moment. _"All they want is the photocopier and the rug, I don't think he and Ford are using those for anything. They won't even know they're gone. Maybe... maybe it'd be best if I just do this." _The thought sent a shiver down Mabel's spine, but the longer she pressed the idea, the more appealing it was. _"If I do that, I can save Mermando, then the offer of the mind wipe and hopefully next time this happens, Dipper won't be lone warrioring around another dimension and we can bring these men in black down together! Yeah, the twin power way! Just like in the old days!"_

Outwardly, Mabel's expression briefly spiked with happiness as she looked up to the stormy sky with an eager grin on her face, before abruptly being struck by a fit of anger that she vented by kicking the pole of a nearby street light over and over again. By the time she was done her foot felt sore but she didn't care "Stupid, stupid, STUPID! That's how I ended up like this in the first place!" She yelled out aloud, casting a despairing look towards the sky, raindrops staining her face. "Always running away from my problems, always helping the bad guy, always demanding Dipper bail me out! That's how I lost him in the first place!"

Her anger burned up and out quickly enough though, leaving Mabel to look at the ground while breathing heavily for a few seconds, before straightening out her posture with a determined look on her face. "No, I'm going to defeat this enemy myself! I'll save Mermando and protect my family, and I won't force Dipper to sacrifice for me this time!" Taking a deep breath, she let her challenge sink in, this time smiling genuinely despite the enormity of what lay before her. However, after a few more moments, a small crease appeared on her brow.

"Although... let's not go nuts here Mabes." She said after a moment of thought. "Just because I'm going to stand up and face my problems this time doesn't mean I can't do it without any help. I just need to make sure if anyone sacrifices something here, it's me. After all, I'm fighting a government conspiracy here, charging off alone would just be stupid." Mabel reasoned out while pulling out her cell phone and looking for a specific contact. "Besides, Grunkle Stan would be upset with me for weeks if I didn't invite him to come kick the crap out of someone threatening the family..."

A short distance away but well hidden below ground, a trio of adults stood around the slid back wooden panel of fine desk, listening in on Mabel's introspection. "What a beautiful little speech." Agent Ferris remarked sentimentally while leaning on the desk by an elbow. The hearing end of the listening device consisted of a simple speaker hidden under the wooden panel, three light bulbs that indicated technical status (all currently green) and a metal imprint in the shape of a hand. "Shame she had try and subvert the mission less than five minutes in. Millennials, am I right?"

Powers and Trigger were standing on the other side of the desk, their normally stiff expressions betraying a small amount of concern. "Sir, she's just emotional at the moment. I suggest we wait until she stabilizes before taking any sort of action. She might still change her mind." Powers spoke up.

"Noted Agent Powers." Ferris responded. "No worries, nothing severe in mind, just a little... push in the right direction. Besides, we can't have her leaking details to her great uncle, can we?" He explained, before placing his hand into the imprint below the wooden panel.

Back on the streets of Gravity Falls, Mabel had sheltered herself against a building while her phone rang, waiting for Grunkle Stan to pick up. She wasn't upset or concerned by the delay though. Stan was probably just having trouble remembering where he put his own smart phone or was trying to remember how to answer it. The girl giggled a little as she thought about it: Stan hadn't been as quick to embrace modern communications technology as Ford had, but he couldn't turn his twin brother down when he insisted the two of them get matching cells, "So the whole family can stay in touch easier!" He later explained begrudgingly.

However, as Mabel was humming a little ditty, waiting for the phone to pick up, she felt something catch in her throat. The impromptu song stopped as the thing became solid somehow. Mabel wasn't choking, she could still breath, but it didn't feel like she was throwing up or coughing either. She just had a lump in her throat that she couldn't get down. In fact, it seemed like it was rising instead of sitting still or going down.

It didn't actually hurt until the mass hit Mabel's larynx. Then, it hurt a great deal.

"UGRRAGHH!" Mabel choked, spat, screamed and squelched as she coughed up the mass against her will. Her upper throat and mouth felt like they'd been ripped to shreds, and while tears of pain had blinded her eyes she could still see the pile of spit up material was bright red. Mabel had vomited plenty of times in her life, but never before had it come up red. She coughed one more time and felt a fresh slash of pain impact her throat before slumping against the building wall, exhausted and trying to catch her breath.

"...bel? Mabel? Is that you pumpkin?" Abruptly came a familiar, crusty old voice. Mabel broke through the haze that had clouded her vision and looked to her side where she'd dropped her phone. Grunkle Stan had finally picked up! In a spurt of energy, Mabel threw her hand towards the fallen phone, but stopped when a metal glint caught her eye, and after a moment, she realized it was coming from her pile of vomit. _"Why is my throw up shiny?" _She asked in her head, still a little dazed. Never having been reluctant to poke around her own upchuck before, Mabel turned her attention to the fresh pile, and felt a chill go down her spine as she recognized the contents.

Besides mashed up, stomach processed bolus tinted by blood, the nearby vomit pile had a small number of gleaming razor blades buried in it.

The sudden, sharp splash of fear Mabel felt was enough to sober her out of her daze almost instantly, though a new layer of confusion had replaced. _"That's not possible, I haven't eaten in almost three hours. This... this has to be some kind of supernatural attack, no doubt. And the only people who could possibly want to do that..."_

In an instant, Mabel snatched up her phone again, holding it close to her face and speaking a little louder than most people would need to. "Hey Grunkle Stan, sorry if I interrupted anything, I think I butt dialed you by accident! Is everything good at the Shack!?" She spoke, putting on her most vibrant and cheerful tone of voice.

"...Yeah, everything's fine here." Stan answered back, still sounding a little worried. "Are you sure you're alright sweetie? It's getting stormy out there. If you need a lift, I could come get you."

"Oh, no, no thanks, but that sure is sweet of you to offer Grunkle Stan!" Mabel thanked through the phone. "I found the most adorable umbrella while I was out today and absolutely want to give it the walk through the rain it was made for! Let it feel validated in its career choices, you know?"

A small chuckle came through the phone as Stan's tone lightened. "Alright pumpkin, I'll see when you come home. Love you Mabel."

"...I love you too Grunkle Stan." Mabel responded with sincerity and a slightly less energetic tone before hanging up, pocketing her phone, and looking at the vomit pile again. With a sigh, she muttered aloud "Well, no choice but to just get the stuff now I suppose." before talking off back into the streets. A short walk away and down below, Ferris leaned back in his chair with a satisfied look on his face while Powers and Trigger looked outright uncomfortable despite their efforts to hide it.

"What a quick learner she is."

The rest of the walk back to the Shack was an enlightening one, giving Mabel plenty of time to think this whole thing through. Her early walk down the streets was weak and a little stumbling in places, as the nausea of vomiting and the metallic tasting pain of her cut mouth threatened to bowl her over, but by the time she was stepping between trees Mabel's head was held high and her expression was determined. _"I can't let this slow me down. If Dipper could survive so many adventures without going to the hospital, than so can I!""_

Slipping inside the Shack so as to avoid the tourist groups, Mabel was nearing the stairs, halfway through the living quarters when she ran into Grunkle Stan. "Hey kid." He greeted casually, before catching a second glance at her. "Cute umbrella." He remarked sarcastically, causing Mabel to realize that the umbrella given to her by the black ops government super spy looked exactly like an umbrella owned by a black ops government super spy: Extremely plain, colored black and unremarkable. Smiling nervously for a second, Mabel knew she needed a response.

"Oh you really think so? I KNEW it wasn't just me that could appreciate this guy!" Mabel responded, sounding for all the world like she was sincere in this opinion. "I think this umbrella has inner cuteness, you know? Just needs a, a woman's touch to get it to come out and blossom under the rain, like a lovely flower that has had as much to drink as it can and is ready to bloom!

Despite being too cynical to truly appreciate an umbrella like this, Stan did end up smiling at Mabel's enthusiasm. Even if he didn't really like the things she did in the name of art, he did like how they made her smile. "Okay pumpkin, you do you and make him the most dashing umbrella around!" The old man spoke with a hearty laugh.

"That's the plan!" Mabel exclaimed, before putting a crooked finger to her chin and examining it closely. "In fact, I can see exactly what this umbrella needs. It needs..." She began to explain excitedly, before her voice abruptly dropped to dark and sinister to utter the word "Glowsticks." Then, just as quickly, she was bright and happy again. "Grunkle Stan, could you go to town and pick me up some glowsticks?"

His mood instantly taking a turn for the cranky, Grunkle Stan at first responded "Kid, what do you think I am, so kind of hippie delivery man!? I'm not going out to get just glowsticks!" He said firmly, crossing his arms and looking away from Mabel. _"Nope, not going to do it! I was a transporter for glowsticks once but even if they're actually loaded with real... glowstick... juice? I'm NOT doing that again! I nearly got thirty years for that one!" _However, Stan soon made a critical mistake, briefly letting one eye open and taking a short look at Mabel, and this was the act that sealed his doom. She was looking pouty now, a cross between miserable and adorable that could soften the hearts of even the most bitter. After trying to resist for a bit longer, Stan finally gave in, throwing his arms over his head and going "Okay, okay! I'll go get some glowsticks! Just put that face away Mabel, it should count as a lethal weapons!"

"Thanks so much Grunkle Stan! You're the best!" Mabel replied, stepping forward to give her great uncle a hug as thanks. _"Oh wow." _She thought to herself while removing her arms after an appropriate amount of time. _"I never realized how tall I've gotten since I was last here."_

"Yeah yeah, I got some shopping I need to do anyway." Grunkle Stan rationalized away as he left the room. "Don't cause trouble while I'm out!"

"Don't worry Grunkle Stan, I wont!" Mabel replied cheerfully, but as soon as the door closed the girl let out a breath she hadn't know she was holding. "Right, now there's no one in my way." She muttered before taking off up the stairs. Moving swiftly through the house, Mabel was able to locate the two objects easily enough, they'd been right where they'd been left, all those years ago, but as she walked up to the copier with the rug rolled up over her shoulders, the girl let out a sudden sigh of realization.

"Oh, right, I don't think I can move that by myself." She said aloud, with something of a theatrical gesture to her tone. Letting the rug fall to the floor, Mabel stood around and paced for about half a minute, looking to put a plan together. Thinking about the various boxes and carrying supplied down in the basement, the girl abruptly looked straight at the copier and then slapped herself on the forehead. "DUH!"

The light of the photocopier going off several times could be seen through the bottom of the room's door if anyone else had been on the second floor, and the sound of the old machine churning with life bounced around the walls of the closed room. Mabel laid down across the scanning bed of the device, giggling each time the magic light passed over her. Paper sheets bearing her likeness were spat out by the machine, and the ink recreations of the twin seemed to vibrate with energy before pulling themselves into the third dimension by their own energetic arms, rapidly stepping free and bouncing around the room.

"Hello Mabel!"

"Oh high Mabel!"

"Mabel here!"

"Mabel, Mabel, good to see you, and you as well Mabel."

"Such a pleasure Mabel!"

"Oh it's been too long Mabel!"

"Hi I'm Miss Mabel look at me!"

"Mabel! Good to see you! I'd offer you a cup of coffee, but, well, you know..."

"MABELS!"

The last shout came from the original, rising up from being flat on her back and turning off the machine, leaving the final count of Mabels in the room, paper plus flesh, at seven! Sitting above them on the beaten up old copier, the original Mabel had captured the attention of all her clones with the shout and a raise of both arms over her head, resulting in the whole crowd waiting in silence to hear what was to be said next.

Across town, Ferris was rubbing his head in annoyance at what he'd just heard. "This is gonna be a mess to listen to properly. Still, points for creativity." He remarked dryly before rolling his eyes. "Well, nothing we can do now. Make the call."

"We all know what we need to do, correct?" Mabel was asking her clones, each of whom shouted a different affirmative yell. All feel silent however, when Stan's business phone abruptly began to ring. All eyes in the room where watching the old piece of technology ring on and on. _"I know I shouldn't just pick up Grunkle Stan's phone..." _The original thought to herself while climbing off the printer. _"But this is too much of a coincidence." _

"Hello? ...Yes, I understand. There may be some delay because of the rain... I understand... Got it, I can make both deliveries right now. I understand, goodbye."

Hanging up the phone, Mabel turned around to all her clones with a more determined and serious look on her face now. "Welp, that was the boss. It's time for us to move out girls!" Despite their own trepidation, the various clones took on a look a grim but eager and determined confidence going forward, though the original Mabel looked a little unsure all of a sudden. "Although... moving this thing is going to require a lot of coordination, and I'm pretty sure we'd get nowhere just shouting 'Mabel, do this!' or 'Mabel, look out!' at each other all day. As much as I hate to say it, I think we're gonna have to take a page from Dipper's book... and get organized."

A collective groan rose from the crowd of clones, but original Mabel met it with a coy smile.

"...The Mabel freaking way!" She exclaimed jubilantly. "FASHION PARTY TIME!"

Everyone inside the secret government base was looking a little awkward as their high tech surveillance device was overloaded with the sounds of over half a dozen teenage girls running towards the upstairs bedroom and squealing in excitement the entire time. "Sir, I'm beginning to have doubts about the operation." Agent Powers said in a straight tone of voice.

"Shut up Powers." Ferris responded petulantly. "She will capitulate to us, sooner or later. It's all in her psyche profile."

Meanwhile, the impromptu fashion show had reached its peak, the room's wardrobe totally ransacked so each Mabel clone could assemble a personalized outfit and develop their own unique identity from it. Clothes were tossed to and fro, pillaged from suitcases and other storage sources before being rapidly traded between the identical occupants of the room as all them tried to piece together something compelling, something to mark them as unique! The activity hit a fever pitch when a Mabel that had slipped away abruptly ran back into the room lugging a full trash bag behind her. "Check it girls, I raided Pacifica's wardrobe!" She yelled out, eliciting a host of cheers and whoops from all present.

"Oooh! Oooh! Gimme some of that!"

"Dibs on her purple jacket!"

"I want her tryhard sunglasses!"

"...Crap. Of course her top doesn't fit me."

The activity gradually began to die down from that point, and when the Mabel in charge had confirmed everyone had decided on an outfit, she shushed the crowd and began the show. All of them were ready to step on stage (Dipper's old bed) and tell the world just who they were!

The first one to jump up was a Mabel wearing a completely blue ensemble, with a custom sweater stylized after the ocean, dark blue jeans and even light blue socks. "Hello there world, my name is Mablue, and I'm depressed about the direction my life has taken!" She shouted to the crowd with familiarly Mabel cheer and enthusiasm, resulting in the entire audience of Mabel's applauding her. Right after the newly christened Mablue stepped down into the audience, a new member stepped out and took the stage for herself.

The appearance of this next Mabel resulted in the crowd quieting to a murmur however, as she was clad in the classic shooting star print sweater. Like many of Mabel's old classics from that first summer, the growing girl had held onto it and refitted it several times to keep up with her changing body in an attempt to hang on to the memories of her adventures in Gravity Falls, but unlike all the others, Mabel had always been reluctant to wear this one again. "I would like to be known as Shooting Star for this mission..." the clone explained, drawing a gasp from everyone present. "...Because I am going to TAKE THAT NICKNAME BACK FROM BILL CIPHER!" This caused the crowd to warm to her right away, providing a round of applause that was more formal and proud than the previously wild cheering.

"Alright everybody, I think it's time we all shine a little brighter!" Said the next Mabel clone as she jumped onto the bed. "Turn that frown upside down, and let the voice of love take you higher!" She declared in rhyme while pointing to the sky, clad in a bright yellow sweater with a smiling cartoon sun on the front and a pair of yellow shorts below it. The crowd provided a much more wild round of applause for this getup and the sunny attitude the Mabel wearing it brought with, and while she was taking a bow, the clone remarked "We'll get through this with the power of our positive thinking, and reignite the sunshine of our lives! You know, like that weird movie where they reignite the sun. Oh, and call me Sunshine!"

A steady chorus of playful boos and jeers rose up from the crowd as the next clone in line walked up to the bed, moving with an exaggerated strut and seeming to soak up all the negative attention. This Mabel had gotten the lion's share of the last minute addition to the fashion show, and was wearing Pacifica Northwest's purple jacket, a matching skirt with black leggings underneath, and was hiding her eyes between a pair of the blond's large and dark sunglasses, while below them her mouth stayed flat in a "I'm too cool for you" expression outside of the occasional lip smack. "Hello there, all you dirty peasants." She began with a put on and haughty tone of voice, performing a hair flip, less practiced that Pacifica's but still impressive, while up on stage and that only made the crowd of Mabels boo her even more. "You can refer to me as Northwabel, and I'm here to steal all your brothers away from you with my sultry charms and unusually quick to develop body!"

Still, it was obvious everyone was still having fun and didn't have any genuine disdain for the Mabel clone leaving the stage, and that paper girl in turn and enjoyed the reaction she had gotten and was quick to join her sisters in greeting the next one up: She'd forgone the usual sweater attire to wear a hot pink zip up hoodie under a life vest, a pair of Mystery Shack brand sunglasses, and a matching pink skirt with knee high socks. "Here I am, the pretty soldier of love, Mabel Pines!" She announced while striking a pose. "Working together I know we can rescue Mermando from the clutches of the government! For quick reference though, you can call me Mailor!"

The last of the six clones who ended up jumping on the bed to show off their new look was a paper Mabel that had taken the entire outfit that her original had made not too long ago in emulation of Grunkle Ford's field coat, in an effort to join Dipper on his adventures. The woolen rainbow trench coat, mustard slacks and question mark undershirt were as searing to the eyes as ever, but Mabel wore it with a confidence that was appreciated by the audience. "And I'm super special science Mabel!" She announced proudly, throwing a few air punches before reaching into a coat pocket and pulling out an incredibly obscure and specialized mechanical tool, which she squinted at in confusion for a moment before tossing it away and looking back to the crowd. "And if I can't cook up a super science solution to all our problems, I'll let my fists do the talking!"

"And I'm the original!" Spoke up the Mabel in the green sweater decorated with a pot of gold on the front, turning the heads of all the Mabels in the room around to their own bed, which the leader had stood upon to address her paper followers. "Now, we're all clear on what we need to do, right?" She asked again, and again got a collection of affirmative nods. "Good! So, clone squad, you work together to load the photocopier into Soos' pickup truck and take it to here..." She indicated on a map of the town that had been pinned to the wall sometime during the confusion. "...while I'll take the guys' van to deliver the carpet here!"

On the other end of the wire, Agent Ferris opted to turn off the desk setup, transferring the feed over to an earpiece before closing the wooden hatch and standing up. "And there we go. Time to collect our prizes." He stated while reaching into another desk drawer and producing a pair of children's squirt guns. "You two will collect the photocopier. Dispose of all the clones after you've secured the object."

Both Agents accepted the unconventional weapons as soon as they were passed over the desk, but there was a notable nervous shake to their normally professional attitudes that Ferris easily picked up on. "You have permission to speak freely, agents." He remarked dryly.

Both hesitated for a quiet moment, but eventually Trigger broke the silence. "Sir, surely there's a better way to handle this? Mabel, she's... she's still just a child. Perhaps we should wait until Stanford returns and go straight for him? We'd probably get more out of him that way." He spoke, just a twing of uncertainty breaking through his professional tone.

"Oh, oh Trigger, don't be fooled so easily." Ferris responded chidingly. "She may not have the obvious markers of the secret world, like fishbait boy or the various monsters we fight, but she's a part of it. She's touched by the devil." He explained, while making his way to the elevator. "And that makes her fair game."

Back at the Mystery Shack, the leading Mabel dressed in the green sweater had gone to the fairly new backyard garage with the carpet rolled into a tube over her shoulder. The rain had let up sometime during the fashion show, though while the sky was clearing the ground was still incredibly wet. Initially enthusiastic, her mood deflated somewhere when the automatic door opened far enough to let her see there was no vehicle waiting for her. "Oh my god, did we get robbed!?" Mabel shouted in surprise at first glance, but quickly spotted a sticky note stuck by where the keys were normally kept. "Took the van to Hell. Sorry if you needed it. Probably not coming back. Love, Stanford." The girl read aloud, before crumpling the paper up and throwing it over her shoulder. "Typical." She remarked dryly.

Now wondering what to do, Mabel wandered out of the garage just in time to watch the clone squad haul away the copier from a distance. They had left through a back door to the Shack just in time to rush past Soos and a new crowd of tourists he was showing that rock that looks like a face.

"Hey Soos!"

"Hey Soos!"

"Hello Soos!"

"Hey Soos!"

"Good afternoon everybody! Hope you're enjoying the tour!"

"Hey Soos! We need to borrow your pickup truck by the way!"

"Haha, okay Mabels, just bring it back in one piece." The second Mister Mystery answered without missing a beat before turning back to his crowd of tourists, all of whom were struck senseless by the six identical teenage girls hauling a photocopier past them, the bizarre sight striking extra hard after their expectations had been appropriately lowered by the tacky taxidermy the tour had show off so far. "Ah, kids. What can you do?"

Smiling at this, the green sweater wearing Mabel cast her gaze to her only other option: The old golf cart that was still kept around the back of the Mystery Shack, remembering the role of played in her and Dipper's original adventure. However, when her eyes fell upon the place it was normally stashed away, nothing was waiting for her. Despite this absence, Mabel smiled even wider at this.

"Perfect." She muttered to herself, before turning the heads of the crowd of tourists one more time as she rushed past them, yelling "Girls, wait for me! Hi Soos, hi various tourists!"

A short amount of time later, Agent Powers and Agent Trigger were waiting in the back cabin of their department's van, the same one they'd kidnapped Mabel with earlier. They'd parked themselves into a quiet little alley where the vehicle could wait out of sight, observing the location the girl had been given over the phone on a laptop screen, courtesy of a hidden camera put inside the eye of a statue, which had the effect of making the old pioneer it depicted look like a cyborg from the future. In the isolated atmosphere, both could feel each other's tension. The squirt guns they'd been given for this mission managed to feel quite heavy concealed in their suits, a distinct feeling compared to how familiar and unobtrusive typical metal handguns had become in that socket after their years of service.

Trigger was simply standing as stock still as possible against the metal walls, attempting to not betray a trace of expression, while Powers was a little more mobile, pacing about a small amount. "I know you're feeling some doubts Trigger." The older agent eventually spoke up. "It's certainly a sharp turn, going from super villains to teenage girls, but it's all in the name of America." He consoled.

"Of course Agent Powers." Trigger replied professionally. After a quiet moment between the two however, Powers abruptly produced a screwdriver from his suit pocket and stabbed it into the wall of the van, puncturing and wiggling through the metal through sustained effort, and eventually drawing a wire out of the wall wrapped around the head of the screwdriver. With a sharp yank, he snapped the wire in two, officially putting the two off the record. "I don't like this Powers." Trigger confessed much more honestly, a smaller tone of emotion getting into his voice. "There were rough parts to the job before, back in the Bureau, but we always knew we were tracking down bad guys. Mob bosses, money launderers, serial killers, terrorists, drug kingpins... but some of the things Ferris has had us chase, well, they've committed no crimes! Their arrests wouldn't hold up in court if they were human."

"I understand your concern Trigger, believe me, I'm long past the point of questioning the legality of this whole operation. It's an evil, without a doubt, but to a degree... I still think it's a necessary evil." Powers explained. "For every teenager we're blackmailing or mermaid we're kidnapping, think of the good we've managed to do as well!" He argued, still keeping an understanding tone. "The human ranch operated by vampires that we shut down, the aircraft sabotaging gremlins that we kept from causing bombs to fall on civilians, the kidnapping fish hybrid village we stopped from abducting people... Our department needs to exist to protect the people of America from the things that go bump in the night!" Powers asserted, but then, his expression softened and more of his own uncertainties came through. "But, you're not wrong to have doubts. Everything about how this is run is suspect. There's seemingly no oversight, and no one but Ferris ever talks to anyone else about the operations we conduct, and I have no idea where our funding comes from. Ideally, I'd like to find someone we can report all this to who can launch an internal investigation. I don't trust Ferris."

Before either of them could continue, a knocking came from the back of the van. "Hey, men in black, open up! We've got the copy machine!" Came the distinct voice of Mabel Pines.

Both Agents looked surprised at this, and upon checking the camera feed saw no sign of the red pickup they'd been told to expect. The banging on the back door continued however, leading both Agents to exhale and draw their water pistols. "They must have recognized the van." Powers muttered as the two got into position.

"Yeah." Trigger answered with his usual stoic tone. However, after a moment, his voice cracked, and with a whisper, the man asked "Do you think these clones count as people?"

"There's only one entity in the universe that's qualified to decide that Trigger, and that's the United States Supreme Court." Powers answered, uncertainty managing to creep into his voice as well as he took aim with the brightly colored children's toy, working out exactly where Mabel must be standing. "And I pray to God we end up in front of it, someday and somehow."

The door swung open in the middle of a pounding knock.

Both fingers pulled back on the triggers.

Streams of water surged forward towards the target.

The water splashed harmlessly off the orange, pocket covered vest she was wearing.

The experienced agents, despite their years of training and hardening emotional trauma, couldn't help but freeze up momentarily as all their built up expectations and difficult struggles with their impending duty came crashing down on them. Instead of melting into a screaming, agonized pile of mush, the Mabel Pines standing in front of them, dressed in shorts and a short sleeved shirt under her vest (and had also kicked off her shoes and only had tall woolen socks on her feet oddly enough), was simply slightly damp and mildly annoyed looking, though the annoyance seemed like it could have come from the rolled up carpet she had been lugging around on her shoulders.

Flipping up the lowered bill of her Mystery Shack gift shop pine tree label hat, Mabel gave Powers, the agent closest to her, a wide grin that despite brimming with normal Mabel happiness, also concealed a faint edge of viciousness to it. "Thanks, that was refreshing!" She exclaimed, before swinging the rolled up carpet off her shoulders and clobbering Agent Powers over the head to it, letting the anomalous object clatter to the floor along with the man. When the rug unraveled itself on the floor of the van, the numerous bricks and one doorknob Mabel had loaded into it spilled out as well.

Trigger involuntarily took a step back as Mabel jumped into the van, then very intentionally took a step back and raised his hands up when the teenage girl produced a handgun from inside her vest after closing the door behind her. Trigger would have been struck by the absurdity of the fact that he was the one stuck with a water pistol while the teenage girl had him at gunpoint with a very real, very metallic firearm were he not rightfully scared for his life at the moment. Particularly after he got a look at her muzzle discipline.

"Where did you get a gun!?" He shouted in surprise, unable to help himself from asking the obvious question.

"Grunkle Stan doesn't do a particularly good job keeping his 'anti-ladder wielding maniac weapons' locked up." Mabel explained curtly. All the while, she was gesturing with the pistol a great deal, poking it in Trigger's general direction and holding it with her finger on the trigger the entire time. To the agent's greatest dismay, she had taken the safety off as well. "Now, up against the wall!"

"You're the real one, aren't you?" Trigger asked while complying with her demands. "The water didn't work on you because you're not a paper clone."

"Excellent work Mulder." Mabel responded with a snarky, unimpressed tone of voice. "You see, I figured you had to be listening to me SOMEHOW right after I chucked up razor blades as soon as I called Grunkle Stan for help, and when I got back to the Shack and started the fashion show, I figured it out!" She explained, sounding more proud of herself with every word. "See, I keep a meticulous count of my sweater collection including the ones that have gone missing, which at last count was four, but when I checked them again I found I was missing five whole sweaters. The original missing four were Wavvy Gravy, Smooth Sunday, Twin Match and St. Patrick's Day! But as I checked it over, suddenly Rainbow Road is missing and I'm wearing St. Patrick's Day! That being one I lost real recently at that!" Narrowing her eyes, she spat at Trigger accusingly "You stole one of my sweaters and wired it at some point, didn't you!?"

Despite his years of training and experience with holding a blank expression, the combined pressure of Mabel being completely correct and the gun she had in his face managed to make Trigger crack to a small degree. Small beads of sweat ran down his head as his mouth twitched into a frown. "That's... that's absurd." He tried to deny. "What would be the point of bugging one of your sweaters then not putting it back so you'd actually wear it?"

"So your boss could make sure I was wearing this one, in person!" Mabel accused, causing Trigger to visibly flinch. "I don't remember what happened, but something spaced me out while I was riding in that elevator with Ferris." She explained further, a tone of hurting and revulsion entering her tone the whole time.

Suddenly, realization spread on Trigger's face, and knowing the jig was up, he asked "That's why you put on that whole fashion show, isn't it? So you could slip off the St. Patrick's Day sweater and put it on a clone, letting you operate without us noticing."

"Actually, I did genuinely wanted to do the fashion show as a way to help my clones personalize themselves." Mabel explained with an offhand tone. "Sure it helped me to take the sweater off, slip away to clone myself one more time and put the sweater on her while I stole some of Dipper's clothes, but I would have done that anyway even if I didn't need to get rid of that sweater, which you shamelessly defiled by weaving a wire of mistrust and intrigue through its stitching of love!" By the end of her statement, Mabel was much more angry sounding. She narrowed her eyes, and with a glare, leveled a fresh question at the secret agent.

"Now, Ferris. He can do something with memory, can't he? He mentioned having memory wiped people to cover up Bill, and you guys clearly managed to recover from Ford brain wiping you somehow. Did he manage to steal the memory gun technology at some point?"

Still trapped by the gun and increasingly nervous as he waited for it to discharge accidentally, Trigger gulped before admitting "Ferris has many strange powers. He's a paranormal patriot." Then, managing to compose himself slightly, he spoke to Mabel in a stronger, more commanding tone. "What do you hope to achieve with this, anyways? You've assaulted and threatened federal agents by now, do you really think you'll get away with this?" He asked, voice getting harsher the longer he spoke. "What's your escape plan? You're still the same little girl who instigated a car crash to try and kill me with no concern for the fact yourself and your brother were in the exact same vehicle!"

"Shut up!" Mabel shouted in response, and Trigger's tongue caught in his throat as her exclamation caused the gun she had to bounce around in her hand in an unsafe manner, making him opt to choose his words carefully next time. "I don't need a plan when it comes to protecting my family from creeps like you! I just need to keep my head held high and power through life with my optimism and creativity!"

Silence reigned between the two after the outburst, as the girl didn't know what else to say and the agent was increasingly terrified of the gun pointed in his direction. When the silence was broken, it was only broken for one of them, as Trigger's earpiece buzzed to life, emitting a sound only he could hear. However, a faint buzzing could be heard coming from Powers' device, which had fallen out of his ear and onto the floor, cluing Mabel in that communication had been established.

"Agents, report. The original Mabel has just jumped out of the pickup truck driven by the clones and is heading in my direction. Prepare yourselves for contact."

It was Agent Ferris speaking in Trigger's ear, but Mabel silently gestured with the gun for him to not answer. With another nerve racking gesture, she ordered the man to take a few steps forward, with he did with noticeable reluctance. Then, with an incredibly wide grin, Mabel suddenly began shuffling her feet against the floor. Trigger only had a moment to stare confused at this before a flash hit his eyes and the world seemed to go unbalanced. He felt weak, there was a weight in his arms and his face... seemed to hurt? To make things worse, he seemed to be starting at himself, but swiftly realized he wasn't having any sort of cranial trauma induced out of body experience or hallucination.

"This is Agent Trigger." Mabel, now inhabiting the older man's body, spoke into her earpiece. Unfamiliar facial muscles stretched into a smile that anyone familiar with the agent would have described as unsettlingly out of character, and her voice was a borderline panto over-exaggeration of what a secret agent would sound like, but between it being spoken with Trigger's genuine body and the man's own history of sounding very strange, it seemed to not rouse any suspicion. "Agent Powers is moving into place to greet the clones. Do we... move to radio silence from here on out?"

On the other end of the line, Ferris looked at the car radio of his black sedan with a quizzical expression, the device having been modified to be able to receive input from the comms and bugs used by Project TWILIGHT. _"Trigger sounds sort of weird." _Pressing the button to talk, the leader of the project responded with "Affirmative. Report back as soon as the object is in your possession." Then, just as quickly, he adjusted the channel so he was only speaking to Powers. "Agent Powers, confirm status. Agent Powers?" Scowling at the lack of response, Ferris finally switched over to Mabel's wire, and upon hearing the sound of a car starting up very close by over the wire, decided to throw his keys in the ignition and fire up his own vehicle.

Between the weather and the time of day, the roads were fairly barren at this point in time, letting Ferris pull right out of the alley he'd backed his car into without him feeling like he needed to pay any special amount of attention to the road he was entering, too wrapped up in his thoughts of what Mabel might be up to. The answer, and a speeding, swerving pickup truck with a rusty brown paint job, hit him moments after because of this.

"Over and out." Mabel in Trigger's body responded curtly. Trigger in Mabel's body had just brandished the gun at his own form and was beginning to speak a command when the van abruptly came to life and jerked into motion, causing the unprepared agent in the unfamiliar body to fall flat on his now female face. Mabel, meanwhile, used the experienced muscles of her new body and her slight foreknowledge that this was going to happen at some point to stay on her feet with only a slight wobble. The agent contorted the girl's face into an involuntary look of surprise and regret as he watched the gun fall to the floor, almost in slow motion from his point of view, and instinctively closed his eyes in fear of the accidental discharge he was sure was going to occur. When an amplified bang noise didn't deafen everyone in the van, a very unnatural sound hit Trigger instead: Him laughing, as Mabel had let out a small giggle at the chain of events.

"You didn't need to worry." She spoke, briefly looking surprised at the reality of how masculine her voice was now, but continuing on without missing a beat. "It's not loaded."

"That's no excuse for waving a gun around so recklessly! You ALWAYS treat a firearm like it's loaded!" Trigger shouted, having the same momentary surprise at the new voice he spoke with. However, his expression stayed shocked longer, as he briefly looked over his shoulder toward's the driver's cabin, if this van divided the front and back with a solid wall. "Whose driving!?" He demanded to know, and was answered when Mabel clocked him in the face as soon as he turned her face back around to face his body.

From inside Trigger's body, Mabel cringed a little at watching her own form stumble backwards hurt, small leaks of blood coming out her own nose after she'd misjudged the agent's strength. However, to her satisfaction, her body had stumbled back far enough that it was no longer standing on the body swap carpet, and Mabel took her stolen body forward a few steps to ensure the federal agent couldn't simply step back forward and swap them back around. _"Not looking forward to patching that up later..."_

"The fake leader Mabel is driving of course!" The real but now bodyswapped Mabel explained to Trigger with another unnatural looking grin on his face. "I had to keep up the appearance of there still being six clones plus me, so I made one more and had her slip into the bugged sweater while I took the golf cart to get a head start on the pickup truck."

"Wait, how is she driving the van!? Powers has the keys!" Trigger demanded to know, struggling with questions while pointing to his still downed partner.

"Grunkle Stan taught me how to hot wire cars that first summer back, and I stayed in practice while living in California." Mabel explained back, enjoying the confused look this generated on her own face.

Trigger was silent for a few moments, feeling that the van was clearly moving and turning through traffic by now. "What happens next?" he asked, a small tone of fear and trepidation having crept into his tone. He was eyeing the discarded gun on the floor. It was closer to Mabel inside his body now, and he couldn't discard the nagging fear of it possibly of it actually being loaded and that it simply hadn't misfired upon being dropped due to sheer chance.

"Well, we're going to go back to your secret base and then you two are going to answer some questions. From there, not too sure." Mabel said with a shrug of her now broad shoulders. "Really depends on what you guys tell me."

Trigger blinked a few times. "Did you really plan all this out?" He asked, genuinely at a loss to the fact that he was now the one being kidnapped.

"Like any good art project, I had a general outline for all this I thought up while walking home, but from here on out it's gonna be heavy improv baby!" Mabel responded with a somewhat manic grin. "Just gotta press forward and go where your inspiration takes you! And of course, have enough cups to hide the ball under." After explaining this, she took the opportunity provided by passage over a bump to scoop the lost gun back up, causing Trigger to take a very visible gulp.

_**AUTHORS NOTES**_

_Alright, everyone who has been hoping for a proper return to action for Mabel, I hope I have lived up to your expectations! This is meant to genuinely put Mabel back on track as a character, give her the sort of difficult, live changing adventures that made Dipper such a compelling character and show her changing by being willing to fight back and sacrifice against threats in order to help her family. I was also trying to show that she has the potential to be just as capable as her twin, but have it express itself in a more free form, improv sort of style, more think things up on the fly than create elaborate plans. I hope everyone has enjoyed!_


	3. Mabel Solves A Mystery

**Author's Notes: At last, I have come back. I would first like to sincerely apologize for the intense delay anyone following my stories has experienced, I do not wish to go into detail but it has been a troubled time for me recently, as I have experienced a personal loss recently. The more time passes however, the more writing these stories goes from being difficult to being an act of relief, so hopefully things will improve from here on out. Now, on a brighter note, this chapter is actually a part of a hiatus ending double feature special return on my part, as my other active fanfiction, whose story runs concurrently with this one, is also updated today! Whether you follow just this one or both my works, I hope this return is worth the wait and that you enjoy what you read. I'd like to thank everyone who has and continues to support me on these stories and shares their thoughts on them. **

* * *

_"I underestimated that girl, Mabel Pines. Even with the wonders of the Mystery Shack at her disposal this turn of events is an unexpected one. I can't let her pull another fast one on me." _

Agent Ferris was thinking those thoughts as he lay sprawled out over a downtown Gravity Falls road, his bashed but durable car nearby. He had jumped out right after the impact with the beaten looking truck, resulting in a sizable collection of injuries from the impact with the road that were still preferable to whatever he would have accumulated by staying in his car as it smashed into a power line. _"She's too uncontrollable to use as an asset... but she could still serve as leverage over the rest of the family."_

Blinking to himself, the government agent realized his head was swimming at this point, and while he could understand his own inner monologue the world around was proving harder to focus on. Closing his eyes, Ferris felt a jolt run through his head and the world around him abruptly became clear. Flipping effortlessly through his memories, the agent worked to assess the situation. _"The original Mabel, wearing the sweater we managed to bug, had jumped on the truck when the van turned up missing. She must be heading for Powers and Trigger while the clones looped around to attack me. Is it possible she's worked out my secret?" _

With his perception now clear, Ferris could begin taking stock of his bodily injuries, and tend to them. _"Cracked bones in a few places, internal bleeding from the impact and external bleeding from where I skid across the road. Nothing I can't handle." _Focusing his mind, Ferris felt electrical tingles crackle through his body as his internal woulds closed themselves up, the blood under the skin retreating into the broken vessels, with dead cells staying behind to clump the break shut. On his open wounds, the seep of blood seemed to simply stop miraculously, a thin layer of hardened, dried and oxidized blood clinging tight to his skin and forming a sealing barrier over the breaks in the skin.

The tingling sensation of the waves weaving through his body, from their point of blossoming within his head to the tender pinpricks of the electric signals entering his blood vessels and puppeteering his red cells, briefly caused Ferris' head to swim, and the head injury ringing in his ears served to amplify the distortion experience. He could remember it now, clear as day, despite the scenery being almost blank white. _"I'll always remember." _The Agent thought to himself, a bit loopy. _"With my abilities I'll never be able to forget it. I even remember the base we had set off from, Canadian Forces Station St. John's. To think this all began because of a NATO commie sub hunting mission..."_

Even though he knew now wasn't the time to be flashing back, the past overwhelmed Ferris. _"Sometimes I feel like this is the price I pay for being able to control and manipulate my memories so easily. Every now and then they just burst out and explode." _The man, much older than he looked, mused as critical parts of his life flashed before his muddled eyes. _"I thought I was top secret before I had my change. Top level collaboration with the international best to use an illegal sub to hunt other illegal subs under the North Pole. That sort of shit could've started World War Three if we had been careless. Or if the people handling us had been careless."_

_"I wasn't disillusioned when they left the crew of my sub to die." _He thought to himself with stark, unblinking certainty. _"To court annihilation for the lives of a single boat's worth of people who don't exist anyway? I didn't mind being saved of course, but if I'd been on the other side of the desk I'd have left that crew to die too."_

The tapestry of visions changed again, becoming much more vague and distorted, refusing to exactly play back the critical series of events, but compared to the gunmetal submarine setting and the drowning depths, the fuzzy shapes visible through the veil were brightly colored and energetic. Little human shaped lumps jumping around in red and green, dragging him through brightly lit surgical suite after brightly lit surgical suite.

_"I don't remember what happened next, under the North Pole, but something saved my life, and afterwards I had my powers. The army psychs say that whatever gave me my abilities was so horribly painful that my brain rewrote using my new powers itself as to cover up the memories and keep me from seeing them." _Ferris mused, attention from the increasingly white and static screen in front of him. _"Personally, I bet it was aliens. It had to be something with a sense of humor, since it dropped me off at a US Navy base on Christmas Morning."_

_"And then from there, it was into the rabbit hole, always going deeper and deeper."_

The memories continued to roll by, replaying Ferris' descent into the hidden world of the supernatural. He'd fought for the government for years in the shadows, exploding vampires from the inside out, erasing the memories of Soviet spies, acquiring objects of power and dissipating ghosts. The memories were passing by faster now as his head became clear, an ache becoming more and more perceptible as reality returned and his fixed mind was once again in control of his fixed body. With a groan, he began to push himself to his feet.

_"A crude fix, but it will have to do until I can find the real Mabel and neutralize her." _Ferris thought to himself coldly. He could feel the still humming engine of the pickup truck a short distance from him, the vibrations traveling through the road that his face was pressed against. _"I have no idea if my abilities will work on these paper clones though. My magnetic fields can manipulate the iron inside red blood cells, but I can't take the risk just assuming that will work on these things. I could let them get close enough to test it, but what if they don't have red blood cells, and if they do, what if they're made of paper?" _A worried expression crossed the face of the previously unshakably confident secret agent. _"It's been too long since I've engaged someone like this up close, I might actually be rusty. My ability to generate and control localized magnetic fields was always good for causing accidents and generating heart failures, but I fear I've gotten to reliant on it, especially after learning I could project them over a distance with the right equipment."_

_"But this won't be the end of me." _He thought to himself, a surge of confidence flowing through Ferris' body as he felt his injuries close to the point that he felt ready to move again. _"She may have dazzled me with a clever use of misdirection, but it would be impossible for Mabel to deduce how my abilities work, just from the little she's seen. No one could just from that, though she may have some ideas." _Still face down on the road, the agent's mind was running faster and faster as he tried to calculate a way out of this situation. _"I've endured too much, survived too much to die here, like this! The secrets of Gravity Falls will be mine!"_

Down the road, the Mabel clones were still piled into Soos' pickup truck, which was idling in the middle of the road as they nervously but determinedly kept their eyes on the downed Agent Ferris. "Alright girls..." spoke up Mablue, who was the one behind the wheel. "...do you think he's dead?"

"He's not bleeding as much as I'd expected." Spoke up Science Mabel, who was cupping her hands around her eyes to look down the street at Ferris, a look of focus on her face. "In my expert opinion though, we should run him over again just to make sure."

"Aw geez girls, isn't that going a little too far?" Spoke up Sunshine with reflexive uncertainty, until Ferris abruptly flipped from his face down position onto his back, letting the six clones clearly see he was still breathing. "FLOOR IT! FLOOR IT!" Shouted Sunshine with an abrupt, scared yell, and without hesitation Mablue put the pedal to the metal.

However, just as rubber began to screech against the road below, Ferris seemingly spat something out of his mouth and the front right tire of the truck abruptly exploded! This sent the vehicle veering to the side as all the clones screamed in surprise and hung on for dear life, and Ferris himself scrambled to his feet in the opposite direction, resulting in the vehicle and the adult male just narrowly missing each other. Ferris collapsed back to his knees as soon as the danger had passed while the truck didn't stop until it had slammed into a street light.

As soon as he had stopped moving Ferris' mouth burst open and he spat a sickly puddle of yellow liquid out of his mouth onto the ground. In-between labored breathing, he muttered "I hate that trick." while pulling himself to his feet. Draining all the iron out of the blood that had welled up into his throat, clumping it into a small bullet and then using an electromagnetic field to launch it at the tire always left a bad taste in his mouth, but it had saved Ferris' life on this occasion. Once he could stand up again, the spook took stock of the crashed truck.

The collection of Mabels had been thrown for a loop by the sudden spin out and crash. Mablue, Science Mabel, Sunshine and Northwabel were in the truck's cabin while Mailor and Shooting Star had been riding in the bed. Those two had been thrown about the worst, with Shooting Star left slumped against the back gate of the vehicle. As she finally got her bearings, two sources of sound hit her ears: All the clones inside the truck arguing with each other about the crash, and Mailor calling for help from her position on the side of the truck, hanging over the sides with only her gripping hands visible from the inside of the truck bed.

"HELP! HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME!" The pink hoodies wearing paper clone calling out with a tone of desperation from over the side of the truck. Still a little dizzy, Shooting Star crawled over to where Mailor's hands were gripping the side of the truck, as she'd clung to the vehicle for dear life in order to not go flying during the crash. All the while, the other clone was muttering "I know that was scary Mailor but we've come to a stop. You can just let go now."

Nevertheless, Shooting Star kept crawling across the truck bed, her own legs still a little shaky, and reached up to take the hands of the clone hanging off the side. Having positioned herself to pull the full sized, still shouting clone back into the truck, Shooting Star abruptly fell on her butt when the two hands she had gripped came over the side and down with a pull like they weighed nothing.

And they practically did weigh nothing, because there was no body attached to the wrist of either hand.

Shooting Star's expression blanched with a sudden look of surprised terror as the sight of her own hands holding two severed but identical ones registered in her mind. They were torn at the wrists, a circular border of ripped paper all the way around for a clean separation. The sound of a Mabel screaming is what finally struck Shooting Star free of her horrified recoiling, but by then, it was too late. She peered over the side of the truck to see that Mailor had finally melted into a completely muddled pile of wet paper sticking in clumps to the normal clothing she'd put on at the fashion show. The paper clone had been done in by a fairly deep pothole puddle that she'd fallen into when she was cut off of the truck.

In the distance, Ferris looked over his shoulder to confirm he's eliminated one of them, then continued to limp away, moving faster than one might expect but still with a noticeable hunch and limp to his movements, as his blood manipulation is better at stopping bleeding than it is at restoring mobility. _"Good thing I had a loose paperclip in my pocket." _He thought to himself while slipping into an alleyway. In his mind's eye, the agent replayed the process of pulling the small piece of office supply out, bending it into a wire and then giving it a slight curve before sending on a curved through, empowered by a magnetic boost. The metal projectile had curved perfectly, ripping through the clone's wrists in a deadly arc, dropping her into the puddle below. "Need to call Powers and Trigger..." Ferris muttered, while producing his phone from a different pocket. "I must possess these wonderful objects!"

However, midway through his dialing the number to contact his agents, Ferris dropped the phone to the ground as a result of a brick falling from the sky and smashing his fingers. He let out a short shriek of pain as the digits bent and snapped into a collection of unnatural angles, but even as Ferris was looking to the roof the brick fell from he could feel the pumping blood reverse course under his skin and the fingers beginning to marionette jerk themselves back into a crude imitation of proper anatomy.

On top of the building was Shooting Star, grappling hook in one hand and a fresh brick in the other.

* * *

_"I haven't felt this dazed and unsure of where I am since I set off that flashbang in the house of mirrors..."_

These were the first clear thoughts that ran through Agent Powers' head as he regained consciousness on the floor of the van. It took a moment from their for his head to stop swimming, but as soon as he could the experienced agent snapped to his feet again, fully alert and scanning the area. The vehicle wasn't moving and the back doors were shut. Staying on guard, he tested them, and found them to also be unlocked.

Opening the van and stepping out carefully, the first thing Powers saw was the garage room of the government base, and Mabel Pines being tied to a chair by his partner. "Hey... Agent Powers! Good to have you back!" Trigger spoke quickly as he tightened the last section of rope behind Mabel's back as the girl struggled against the elaborate knots tying her to the chair and the gag in her mouth.

"Agent Trigger, what happened back there?" Powers demanded to know curtly. His eyes swept the room, seeming to take in every detail of the room. _"Trigger normally does a better job parking than that..." _He thought to himself, before snapping back to reality "Any contact from Agent Ferris?"

"Mabel had hidden bricks inside the rolled up carpet she was supposed to give us and knocked you out with it and then held me at gunpoint with one of her great uncle's guns." Trigger responded energetically while stepping around the teenage girl tied to the chair. "However, she made a slip up and I was able to get the gun away and overpower her."

A frown crossed Powers' face as he heard this explanation, but it was difficult to pick out from his usual rough edged facial features. After a long moment staring at an unusually expressive Trigger, whose face was shifting between a professional smile, nervousness and exaggerated seriousness, the older agent asked "How did you drive back to the base and keep Mabel under control the entire time?"

The air was silent between them for a long moment, and the bead of sweat that formed on Trigger's forehead indicated the illusion had been broken as it splattered against the floor.

"HIYAAAAAAH!"

The Mabel clone that had driven the van here abruptly sprung into action, jumping down from the vantage point she'd taken on top of the vehicle to try and land on Powers' shoulder and clobber him on the head. However, the agent's hand to hand combat training came to his aid here, as he was able to reach behind him, snatch the girl out of the air and redirect her momentum to toss her over his shoulder and to the ground, at which point he got a firmer hold on her and then pulled the clone up to hold between him and the original. In the scuffle, he'd also produced his water pistol and was pointing it at the clone's head.

Mabel in control of Trigger's body hadn't been able to act fast enough to stop Powers from executing this move but did produce her stolen gun and pointed it at the man, just in time for the two of them to find themselves locked in a stand off. Meanwhile, the body of the teenage girl tied to the chair began to struggle and squirm about, as Trigger tried to escape the predicament his new body was found in and communicate with his partner through the gag in his mouth, neither of which he succeeded at.

"Let her go." The original Mabel demanded coldly, putting Trigger's serious natural voice to good use.

"Not a chance." Powers responded, before briefly letting his eyes fall to teenage body tied to a chair. "Trigger, confirm that you've been bodyswapped by blinking three times!" When Mabel's big, wide eyes then proceed to blink three times with uncharacteristic coldness, Powers looked back at the puppeteed body of his partner. "Not bad Mabel, we clearly underestimated you. However, whatever you are aiming to do it won't work out like you hope. The best way to secure the safety of yourself and your family going forward is to put the gun down."

However, while his tone was dead serious the veteran agent was feeling his mind be beset by doubt, the largest singular instance of doubt he had ever felt in his career of proud service to the American government. _"I have no idea how highly she actually values these clones, but she hasn't shot me yet so hopefully I'm on the right track." _In addition though was a new sort of doubt, that found a way into his brain as he tactically evaluated the viability of his hostage taking strategy, and the source of this new doubt was crystal clear to Agent Powers.

_"Damn, so this is what it feels like to be on this side of the hostage scenario." _

* * *

Back in town, Ferris was on the run, darting from alley to alley as Shooting Star continued to pelt him from the roof, hurling any bricks or loose roof tiles she could get her hands on down at the man. He'd managed to avoid any potentially neck breaking blows to the head so far, but was staggering with a small limp after one landed on his foot and had numerous aching spots on his back where the heavy objects had hit him, and his hand was still sore and crooked. No matter where Ferris ran, Shooting Star stayed above him using Mabel's original grappling hook, which she borrowed from her progenitor's luggage during the fashion show.

"Get back here and tell me where Mermando is!" Shooting Star demanded as Ferris burst out into the streets, standing in a light sidewalk crowd for the first time today. The townsfolk of Gravity Falls briefly cast their furtive, surprised looks at the suit wearing man, but soon after glanced up at Mabel as she ran to the edge of the building she was standing atop, arm cocked back to hurl a fake owl statue someone put on their roof to scare away roosting birds at Ferris. The sight of one of the Pines twins battling a seemingly normal human caused everyone to abruptly clear the scene in quietly hurried fashion, all casual conversation dying out as everyone did their best to not acknowledge or get involved in the latest supernatural struggle. Nobody liked to know more than they needed to in this town.

Ferris actually momentarily gaped at this sight. "I spent most of the career having to beat and brainwash people away from the truth, but these people willingly flee it!?" He muttered in surprised, but he was broken from his fugue state when the wooden owl replica smashed into the back of his head. His staggered stumble forward was saved into a brisk and building run as Ferris dashed across the street, jumping over the hood of a car in the process. The gap between the two sides of the street was too far to just grappling hook across so the agent figured this bought him some time, but fleeing across the street extracted its own toll: Still reeling from the last thrown object he'd taken to the head, Ferris lost his balance trying to jump up the curb, stumbling to the sidewalk and blindly flailing an arm to try and pull himself up.

Across the street, Shooting Star had ripped free a satellite dish to hurl at Ferris, who was doubled over in pain trying to pull himself up by a fire hydrant across the street. However, she knew at a glance she couldn't accurately throw the heavy object the full distance between her and Ferris. _"But he seems really out of it..." _The paper Mabel mused to herself, watching the older man barely able to hold himself up on the instillation, body heaving with heavy breathing. _"If I move quick enough, maybe I can bash him over the head with this until he spills!"_

Set on her course of action, Shooting Star dropped the dish off the side of the building, used her grappling hook to climb down, then picked the receptor back up and began to stride menacingly across the now cleared street. "Alright, I've got some questions Agent Murder!" She shouted confidently.

"I could say... the same for you!" Ferris spat back, breathing heavily and a wet rasp to his tone. At just the right moment however, he released the fire hydrant he'd been clinging to and flopped on his back. After the minute he'd spent carefully teasing the hydrant's valve and cap loose with his short range magnetic powers Ferris managed to set free the burst of water at just the right moment, the violent sideways geyser striking the paper clone center mass. Shooting Star was wiped away in less than a second, the majority of her body being reduced to mush the moment the water sprout hit her, and the few remaining solid radial body parts being drawn in by the frayed fibers connecting the whole, falling into the stream as the paper body was blown backwards. All that was left to clutter the gutters was the drenches outfit she left behind.

Ferris breathed heavily on the sidewalk, sealing up the cuts and breaks along his body before steadily rising to his feet. He left the spilling hydrant behind and began to stagger off further into the town, determined to return to his base of operations. The distant barking of a dog was ringing in his ears...

* * *

"Really think about this Mabel! The more damage you do the more involved your family will be in this!" Agent Powers argued, holding the paper clone hostage across from the Real Mabel, come to the agent's base packing a handgun. It made the agent's squirt gun weapon seem comically outmatched, but against the head of one of the copies it was a perfectly dangerous weapon. "If you stand down now, things can still be fixed to allow a moderate return to normalcy. If you keep going..."

"Return to normalcy, ha!" Mabel shout back at him, uncharacteristically venomous. "You've already fucked with my family so hard you erased my memories of it, so what do I lose by going as far as I can go to stop it? I'm not giving up!" She shouted, releasing a torrent of built up anger and frustration at the end of her statement "You're just going to erase my memory at the end anyway, and you've already made me rob my family... how many damn times!?" in a burdened, exasperated and even terrified tone of voice, the lid blowing on the steadily bubbling existential horror she'd been feeling for awhile in a powerful burst of emotion.

Powers actually blinked at this revelation, eyes beginning to dawn with understanding as Mabel made her attitude to him very clear: The possibility of being memory wiped to forget what she had done to help herself seemed to terrify the girl, and Powers was beginning to become very convinced she'd be willing to kill him to prevent that from happening.

A solution occurred to the man, a solution that years ago he would have simply dismissed as being a violation of protocol, but today it survived in his head longer than normal. _"This whole damn op has no protocol." _Powers finally thought to himself, motivating him to say "Mabel... we have never erased your memories."

The meaning of these words visibly swept over Mabel's form, but she was not sufficiently put as ease by them to actually lower her gun. "What do you mean!?" she demanded to know.

"It was a lie, a trick! Ferris said it would play into your psychology, make you feel validated about choosing to help us since you already did so before, and make you unlikely to resist his memory wipe afterwards!" Powers hurriedly explained, all while the Clone Mabel he was holding hostage remained uncharacteristically quiet. "You have never stolen anything from your family at Ferris' instruction, and he has never erased your memory to cover it up."

Mabel seemed to hesitate, for a moment, ruminate slightly as the barrel of her gun tipped down a short distance, but it stiffened up just a moment later as the girl used Trigger's body to firmly state "I don't believe you."

"Then we're just going to stand like this forever." Powers responded, but abruptly, a small, forced cough coming from the Mabel Clone he was holding caught everyone's attention, including the tied up Trigger-in-Mabel's-body.

"Prove it to us." Said the paper clone with a water pistol to her head. "You have records of all your operations, right? You must, after the entire arrest against Grunkle Stan was held up by everybody getting blanked by the memory gun. You wouldn't risk losing everything to us wiping your memory, so I bet you record everything you have for breakfast here in Gravity Falls."

The still, quiet silence coming from both Powers and Trigger spoke volumes, and it was clear to both Mabels that the paper one had worked it out. Powers, however, was able to roll with it. "Mabel." He spoke to Trigger's body. "If you put your gun down, I will show you our operation records confirming the veracity of my statement."

"Try again." The original Mabel said curtly while tightening her grip on the weapon.

"I'll stay here." The clone spoke up, catching everyone's attention once again. Looking upwards, she explained "Powers, would you show Mabel the mission records if Trigger is untied and is holding the water pistol at me? Then Mabel won't shoot you."

Trigger's stern by practice face fell with girlish dismay as soon as the offer was made. "Pape Mabes, no!" The original cried out, though she still kept her firearm steadily gripped. "They'll melt you as soon as I'm out of your sight!"

"Then you'll shoot Powers, won't you?" The paper clone asked, and before anyone could answer, she looked back up at her hostage taker. "Look, we're all just waiting for either the rest of the clones or Ferris to get here first, and no matter what any of us do that's probably going to decide how this ends. What's the harm in letting Mabel be sure about the truth?"

Powers did his firmest to keep his expression from changing as everyone silently contemplated the clone's words. _"Somehow she's making a good point, and a display of sincerity could make the original more cooperative and be the first step in getting that gun away from her." _By the time he decided to speak, Powers was still the first person in the room to respond. "Mabel, I'm willing to accept those conditions if you are. You keep the gun, you and I go down to the computer room to examine the records, and Trigger here keeps the clone under guard."

Trigger's cold eyes fretted about with Mabel's energetic quickness, rapidly passing between all three other people in the room before her desire to know the truth for herself finally won out. "Alright, deal. Go untie Mabel, I mean Trigger! Wait!" She suddenly shouted out, causing everyone to nervously freeze. "One more thing: Lock the rug in the back of the van, then give me the key."

* * *

Back on the streets, Science Mabel was striding confidently down the streets, Mablue following a sort distance behind her with some apprehension, checking over her shoulders very frequently while the leading paper clone alternated her vision only between dead ahead and the small trail of blood on the sidewalk. "Come on Mabel, let's get out of here while we can..." said of the copy of comparatively dour dress and temperate, sliding up close behind the girl in the handmade coat. "...If we get back to the shack, I'm sure Grunkle Stan can keep us all safe until Dipper can come back and help solve this problem."

"We don't need Dipper to do this Mabel, we've got Ferris on the ropes!" Responded back the self-styled paper scientist. Sometime during the trip she had acquired a pair of very large but perfectly circular wire frame glasses, which she's kept as an accessory after punching out the lenses because they made her sick. "Just because he could always outsmart us in all the games we played as children doesn't mean I need his help to solve these mysteries! I found the missing president of the Unites States from crump's sake! I'm taller than him!"

"Didn't his laws result in the Shack getting stolen...?" Mablue mused mournfully, but suddenly her expression perked up and she pointed ahead with her blue sweater covered right arm. "Look over there!" She said, indicating to a residential home where the wooden backyard fence had a large, man shaped hole busted into it, through which the trail of thin blood droplets turned sharply and vanished into.

Quickly rolling to the side and squatting down by the other edge of the gate, the color clad clone Mabel gestured for Mablue to come closer before holding her hands over her head. "C'mon, I'll give you a boost up!" She said in a harsh whisper. "He'll be waiting to ambush us at that hole in the fence!"

Despite her trepidation, Mablue hoisted herself the rest of the way over the fence in short order, her sneakers letting out no noise but a soft compression as they landed on a thick tuft of soft grass. The entire backyard was in a remarkably pristine state, a far cry from the visible damage or rushed repair jobs visible on most of the buildings in Gravity Falls: A slightly compact but never the less unbroken square of green, with a charming little square doghouse by the nearest fence corner and some chairs, a grill and a hose faucet closer to the house itself. "Just another mystery coming from this town..." Mablue breathed to herself, before her eyes caught the imperfection here. The trail of blood continued on the other side of the fence break and lead right over the grass to the doghouse, vanishing into the shaded crawl space.

Letting herself gulp once to swallow her fears, Mablue steeled herself, checked the area again, then slid a straight razor down the baggy sleeves of her blue sweater. It was an old possession of Grunkle Stan's that one of the clones had pocketed as they rushed through the Mystery Shack, and along with other found bits were distributed inside the pickup truck after the crash. The long, sharp blade folded into place and the Mabel clone ducked down at the presumed hiding place, but instead of striking as she'd planned, Mablue let out a gasp of horror as her bent knees buckled underneath her. Rapidly crawling backwards to get away from the mangled, pale, and very dead dog stuffed in the doghouse, she was defenseless when Ferris stood up from his hiding place behind the kennel and doused the paper clone with the murky red water inside the dog bowl between his bloody hands.

As the clone melted away Ferris stood up to his full height, legs staggering a little with the first few steps but gradually becoming stable. _"Using the iron content to sculpt animals blood cells into something human compatible is always a hassle." _Ferris thought to himself as his eyes glances at the water hose at the other edge of the lawn, gently rubbing his temples to try and stave off the focus headache he could feel setting in. _"At least stripping them down to O-type is as simple as I remember." _Memories of gradually drawing in the red stream leaking off a downed razorback hog in the midst of a steaming jungle while rearranging the red cells on a microscopic level gradually faded as Ferris' head cleared and the blood loss replenished, just in time for him to have a perfectly clear picture of a Mabel wearing a patchwork rainbow coat charging him with a short shovel, which she had been able to hide inside her coat due to the fact that she'd ripped out the insides to massively expand the pockets when creating the garment.

By the time he fully processed its approach and exerted his magnetic powers the shovel head was already on course to collide with Ferris' head, but the counter force did cause it to unnaturally slow in velocity a small amount before connecting. The world exploded with fuzz from the agent's perspective as the metal object slammed into his skin, the force of the impact bursting blood vessels below the skin and rattling his skull. Despite the injury his magnetic powers were still building influence over the bludgeon but his attacker was determined to keep swinging. Even though it was a face made of paper, the clone's expression perfectly captured how unsettling it looks when the happy go lucky expression of Mabel gives way to genuine, deeply repressed rage.

Of course the paper clones didn't feel the exact emotions their sources did, but perfectly understood the emotions and desires of however placed themselves in the copy machine, as they were at the moment of creation, and would work tirelessly to satisfy those things. That was how the clone knew she had to strike Ferris over the head with the shovel, again and again. The deep cored anger the original girl tried to bury wasn't bubbling over at random this time. It was deliberately being released, a deliberate choice this time. It didn't matter that an invisible magnetic force could be felt pushing back against the shovel in her hand, the paper clone simply swung harder in response, easily smashing past the raised hands Ferris ineffectually used to guard his head.

The head of small shovel was bending back with each landed strike, and while Science Mabel at first simply noted this with satisfaction as a sign her hits were striking home, the metal plate abruptly broke instead of bending and hurled through the air over her shoulder, prompting a wide eye'd double take. "Not relevant." She muttered to herself, quickly focusing back on Ferris. The agent had crumpled to the ground, the attack still leaving his head ringing and bleeding even with the magnetic cushion. Kneeling down in front of him, Science Mabel moved to wrap both her hands around Ferris' throat.

"You don't have the guts!" The older man spat back, dazed and delirious even as his tone was sharp and bitter.

"Mabel might not, but more than likely she'd actually surprise you." The paper recreation explained. "Either way, I'm not Mabel. I'm a clone, and I can do anything that needs doing so the original's plan can succeed." Then, she locked her thumbs into place over the soft part of the front of the throat, and began to squeeze.

"Wonderful..." Ferris rasped out before his eyes rolled upwards and he became very still, air struggling to come in and out of his body as his training kicked in so as to resist this strangulation for as long as possible. Science Mabel's eyes didn't break as she stayed silent, intensely focused on the task she had in front of her, to the point that her bent knees collapsing beneath her took the clone entirely by surprise.

"What!? NO!" She yelled out, realizing her legs were melting underneath her into a steadily rising puddle of water. Her eyes darted to the source, quick enough to realize that the head of her shovel had been sent flying into the hose faucet, smashing it open and releasing a stream of water onto the lawn. Science Mabel's posture quickly collapsed, resulting in the rest of her body being melted by the water puddle. As soon as the hands around his throat dissolved, Ferris gasped for air, the burning inside his chest having almost boiled over, even with his supernatural abilities slowing the asphyxiation process. It would take time for him to stand up again, even with his blood cells actively dancing to repair the rest of his body, but the agent let out a dazed, hoarse chuckle none the less. _"I WILL be able to get back up from this." _He mused to himself, the spilled water pooling around him in a cool sensation, a natural barrier against further attacks. _"Once my eyes stop rolling and I can feel my legs again, I will return to the base and soon enough all these wonderful discoveries will be mine. Paper minds and flesh bodies..."_

In the distance, another pair of glittering eyes narrows in suspicion as Ferris stumbles back through the hole in the fence, now alone but with a stiff gait.

* * *

Back at the spy base, Mabel inside Trigger's body and Powers, still sound of mind and body, were in the underground office together, the legitimate agent opting to lean over Ferris' desk as he typed away at the cell leader's laptop. Mabel still had the pilfered handgun pointed at Powers' head, trusting her stolen arm's muscle memory that she was holding it right.

"Okay, I've got it all right here, the original operation records for the last month, the only conceivable time we could have used you as an agent then erased your memory of it." Powers spoke, not making a sudden move by stepping away even as his fingers stopped moving across the keyboard. "See the truth for yourself."

"Keep digging." Mabel commanded, making good use of the stolen body's practiced, cool vocal cords.

"That wasn't part of the deal." Powers said back firmly, but not aggressively in an attempt to avoid aggravating her. "You demanded to know..."

"Well that was a lie." Mabel stated plainly, though with a few cracks in her voice. "I just wanted to get you down here and unlocking the computer. The private computer that goes in a desk drawer, at a single person desk down here in Ferris' spy nerd man cave and which you already have the password for considering you didn't need to call him to get it unlocked." Then, a sly smile grew on the normally stony face that was speaking. "You're suspicious of your boss, aren't you? So suspicious you discreetly acquired the password to his personal computer but haven't had the opportunity for some private browsing yet."

Powers' poker face was honed by training and experience, but even so an eyebrow cracked involuntarily as Mabel's accusations, and after needing a moment longer than normal to choose his words, the agent responded by saying "The ethical concerns of this operation are no concern of yours."

"HA! I KNEW IT!" Mabel burst out with a tone of triumphant joy. Powers was beginning to feel slightly unnerved by the extremely energetic noises that were coming from the body of his stoic partner, finding them uncanny. "Well, actually, I didn't know that, I was actually completely unsure WHAT your relationship with your boss was but when I saw you in action there I was wondering how you knew the code to this computer so I went FISHING for an answer! Hook line and sinker baby!"

Powers was too professional to go completely slack jawed at this, but did indulge himself a few moments of open mouthed bafflement at the fast one Mabel had pulled on him. Even as the adult body she was possessing shook with the festive energy of a celebratory dance she couldn't indulge in at the moment, Powers was still quite aware of the gun Mabel was pointing at his face. _"Remembers Powers, not one line about her great uncle being a bad influence until that goes away."_

"SO!" Mabel spoke up cheerfully, her voice spiking quite high. "Let's take a look at what your boss has been up to!"

Eyes casting slightly down with caution, Powers chose his words carefully and responded "Mabel, this was not part of the deal." Maintaining his measured tone, he then implored "Think about the clone upstairs, this could get her killed."

"Oh, Powers..." Mabel said dismissively, waving her empty hand to side as if sweeping the clone in question away. "You think I care about that paper copy?"

As soon as the line finished and the silence of Powers considering his options rained between the two, Mabel's mind began racing. _"Hold it together, remember what Grunkle Stan said. Resist the urge to clamp down on the face twitching, trying to look natural will just make you look unnaturally neutral and is a classic tell." _She thought in a harried tone while her voice, with mildly cruel confidence, ordered Powers to "Get looking. I want you to dig up all the secret conspiracies and the creepy internet history!"

Powers remained still for a moment, cold eyes watching the now unfamiliar body of his partner with no visible fear. Though the agent would act to preserve his own life of course, he remained in total control of his emotional state, assessing the threat without panic clouding his judgement. No, it was some other emotion that was clawing at the back of his mind, telling him to cooperate. Slowly and steadily, Powers put his hands back on the keyboard and began to dig.

* * *

Outside the inconspicuous town building that doubled as a spy headquarters, Agent Ferris leaned against the back wall as his hand worked the keypad lock on the back door to the place. There was no actual correct combination for this electronic lock though, it was simply a cover to the private back entrance that only the metahuman agent could use. As he felt his body direct delicate magnetic waves into the deeper mechanisms securing the door, Ferris caught his breath and tried to compose himself. _"...then I'll need to find out who towed my car so fast, erase their memories and get it back. Or better yet, they could be one of my first mind transplants. Towing agencies make for pretty good cover." _

His thoughts were jumbled and he was slightly tired after completing the trip home on foot, but as the lock opened on the door in front of him he took one final deep breath, put on the usual slight smile that functioned as a default expression in contrast to his subordinates' hard faced stoicism, ignored how rumpled and sweaty his suit was by now, and stepped into the building.

Ferris moved quietly, carefully closing the well oiled door behind him and treading with practiced stealth. The agent was quite aware of the possibility that Mabel or one of her clones had made it to the house before him and was waiting to ambush him. When Ferris quickly confirmed this suspicion upon entering the garage, he was too focused on eliminating her that he didn't notice the gun one was holding was actually a water pistol, and was pointed at the other Mabel.

A short, sharp scream of surprise echoed around the garage as an iron nail emerged from the back of the flesh and blood Mabel's right hand, causing it to spasm and drop the weapon. Despite the scream of pain being a lot shorter and more controlled than Ferris had expected, he stepped into the room and said the line he'd spent a few seconds coming up with anyways. "There we are, quick way to know whose the real one."

While the paper clone backed away in horror and the original body's eyes jumped back and forth between the bleeding wound and the new arrival with an unexpectedly analytic expression, Ferris simply strode towards the two, fists clenching in rage. "I had such high hopes for you Mabel, but it seems like you're simply truly useless to everyone. We're simply going to loot the Mystery Shack while everyone is away now, thanks to you."

"Foxtrot-silent king-acoustic kitty-hummingbird! I'm Agent Trigger! Mabel stole my body using the carpet, she's dAAAAAHHHH!" The body swapped agent listed off, only to erupt into a scream again once Ferris was standing over him, causing the nail to wrench around with his power. This caused a burst of blood to breach the skin, and by manipulating its iron content Ferris was able to splatter the liquid across the paper clone's face, killing her instantly.

"Even if that is you Trigger, I regret to say your service is at an end. The entire Pines Family is hereby slated for termination as national security risks, and per agency policy that means they need to vanish, body and soul. Your country thanks you for your service." Ferris spoke coldly, gathering his power for a killing blow to the body below him. In truth, his head was still too muddled by the numerous injuries it had taken today to even remember if all those code words were correct or not, but even if he had been certain it was Trigger in the body before him, Ferris intended to kill it anyway.

The careful buildup of magnetic power behind the agent's eyes, coiling up the energy to extinguish the life before, exploded into an unfocused mess as a boxy object jabbed Ferris in the small of the back, and electricity flowed through his body moments later. Ferris' fine tuned, magnetically aligned nerves exploded and uncoiled as an outside shock fried the system. The meaty fist cracking him on the side of the head didn't help either.

"You bastard!" Agent Powers shouted, his tone still steely and controlled but now crackling with directed anger and disgust. The elevator, unnoticed since the ragged, murderous Ferris had shambled into the room, was open and the body of Agent Trigger was behind him, still holding the handgun in one shaky hand while Powers had discarded his taser in favor of his own fists. "It was a lie, wasn't it!? The ops, the agency, all the funding... they're all just means to YOUR ends!"

"So, you've been digging. You're a regular private dick, agent!" Ferris spat out, collapsed to the floor on hands and knees, struggling to breathe and align the electrical fields behind his eyes while their stomach churned, digestive fluid beginning to mix with the body's own blood. "That's right handlebar stache, Project TWILIGHT hasn't existed since the 80's. It was disbanded by President Reagan in the final year of his second term, one of the last semi-coherent thoughts his dementia ridden brain shat out!" He explained with a tone of disgust. "Said we were all a bunch of drug hopped super soldiers and pyromaniac cosmonauts!"

"So you went rogue, used your memory powers to hide inside agencies, became a ghost able to steadily misplace resources! You used law enforcement data and conscripted agents to fight against monsters with... and for what!?" Powers listed angrily, causing a shocked and pained look to cross over Mabel's face, as the agent inside her body reacted to all this. "And for what!? So you can grow your drug business!?"

"Am I even still an FBI Agent!?" Trigger yelled out, Mabel's higher pitched natural voice conveying his confusion and dread.

"Agent Powers, you need to calm down." Ferris stated, calmly and slowly. He looked up at his one-time subordinate but didn't rise to his feet to avoid provoking a kick. "Whatever you saw during your treasonous security breach, you don't have the full picture. I use the narcotics rings to acquire funding to carry out the anti-supernatural black ops that need to be done. We need..." Ferris stopped, heaving some blood out of his stomach onto the floor. "...we need to work together. There's still time. We can recover the carpet and the photocopier! Think of what they can do together!"

Things began to click together for everyone in the room, as the potential application the two devices had if used in sync becoming obvious. Further back in the room, Mabel directed Agent Trigger's eyes over the back of the van, hoping that it was still looked and that her paper duplicates had secured the photocopier. The air was silent for a flash of a second as the implications sank in... and then Powers' ankle exploded in a cloud of blood, the iron in his veins reformatting into three skin piercing nails.

Weakness seemingly shed off, Ferris rose to his feat while punching the veteran agent in the stomach. After reaching a shaky upright posture, Ferris backhanded Mabel's original body as it sprung into action, then began to inch towards Trigger's, a deranged expression having taken hold of his face. Even though many of the feelings Mabel's mind was getting from her stolen adult male body were strange and unfamiliar, she knew exactly was the rising sharp pain in the left half of the chest meant. In a few more steps, Ferris would be close enough to cause the young man's heart to explode. "They can do so much... I won't even need agents anymore! I'll take the girl's body, plunder the Shack, and then make copies. Copies of my wonderful magnetic mind... and a whole world full of bodies to put them into."

Mabel raised the body's fists to take a swing at Ferris, but could feel sharp pains developing all over, the iron taking sharp shapes all over her blood vessels. A woozy tremor traveled down her fighting stance. Ferris was battered, bloody, bruised and limping after his running fight all over town and would probably never walk straight again if confined to his original body. He looked like one sharp punch could take his head off, but the last gasp of his magnetic power gave him an event shot at winning. She still had the gun, but her mind was full of panic and wasn't sure if shooting bullets at the magnetic man would even make a difference.

Before she had to take the fateful swing though, fate intervened.

Instead of his solid black dress shoe, now rugged and matted with blood, water and grass slamming down on the final step to his victory, Ferris found himself flailing in midair as he was grabbed from behind, held back from getting in range by a pair of arms grabbing his neck and face.

"TRIGGER, DO IT!"

Mabel's mind had no time to identify the voice but responded on instinct, hefting up Grunkle Stan's handgun and firing. The noise of the blast was almost deafening in the enclosed hideout garage, the unexpected noise and kickback from the gun barrel erupting enough to knock it from Mabel's grip, even with the more experienced hands of the federal agent to bolster her. One bullet proved to be enough though. A short geyser of blood erupted from Ferris' chest, onto his long ruined black suit, and the ragged, exhausted agent immediately went limp and crashed to the floor, face first. As soon as he passed out of view however, Ferris was completely out of Mabel's mind, her attention fully devoted to just who was standing behind him.

"Sunshine?" The original asked, voice still sounding soft and curious despite the body it came from. The paper clone looked ahead of herself for a moment, as Powers and Trigger came to their senses behind her, the magnetic haze leaving their minds and blood vessels as the will behind it evaporated. "It's you in there, isn't it Mabel?" The clone asked her creator, before offering a pained smile.

Before Mabel could blink, her fashionable doppelgänger collapsed backwards onto the floor, a long, dripping hole growing downwards on her body from the bullet had exited Ferris' back and spilled blood onto the paper body. The corrupt operative was dead, but Mabel wouldn't notice that for some time. All she could think about was how the copy of her had thrown itself into the fray, to turn certain death for the girl of flesh and blood into certain death for the magnetic agent, at the cost of her own life.

"...Why?" She asked, after a long, uncertain moment. Tears tried to well themselves up in her eyes, but Mabel fought them back harder than she's ever fought back tears her life, knowing that letting them fall would hurt the paper clone more. "Why did you throw away your life to save me?" She asked with genuinely confusion and sadness. On the inside, Mabel knew the reason the question was so sincere was because her emotionally drained heart didn't have the energy to deceive itself into thinking she'd do the same.

"We're just paper copies Mabel." The dying clone said softly, but with a reassuring smile as more and more of her turned to dust. "Rough drafts and incomplete sketches, here to help the real thing be the best it can possibly be, do the most it possibly can. I've only been a alive a few hours, but... I've already decided I'd be happy to die like this. Because living as a neverchanging paper child, living in fear of the rain forever..." she said wistfully, looking up at her original with wide, sad eyes. "...I'd rather live through you by helping you or saving you, so you can change and learn and _grow _rather than live forever in a paper imitation of a single, unchanging moment, a still frame left to wander a changing world.."

A lone hand, so far untouched by the damage and damp, reached up and patted the flesh and blood on the cheek, offering a soothing touch. "Now come on girl, no need to hold those tears in, let them all out. I fulfilled my purpose and helped you out." Leaning back down, the Mabel clone let out a chuckle. "Hey, you remember Dipper telling you what he had been up to the night of that dance, right? I guess those paper clones of him had more in common with me and my sisters than either of us thought..."

The rasp of pain that was gradually entering the Paper Mabel's voice was the final straw that broke the dam behind the real girl's eyes. She hugged her selfless paper copy close and openly wept for it, her tears quickly erasing the construct in a matter of moments, freeing her from the pain that was getting more intense as it spread further and further over her body.

Mabel Pines, once again the one and only, continued to cry for her fallen clones until there was nothing but traces of paper mush staining to her hands.

* * *

As was a recurring trend in his life, Stanley Pines has missed most of the supernatural action, having driven narrowly around the running downtown battle involving his niece and arriving at home while she was still out, glowsticks in hand. However, he did have someone else waiting for him.

"Hey Mister Pines, welcome back!" Soos greeted in his inherited Mister Mystery costume. Right away Stan could tell someething was wrong, as while the perpetually young at heart man's admiring enthusiasm was as present as ever, a twinge of nervousness he normally didn't feel around Stan was in his voice.

"You can cut it with the Mister stuff and just call me Stan, I've told you that already Soos. I'm retired now, I'm supposed to be well past that." Stan said, his voice as gruff as it always is but with the slightly different cadence that those who knew him would recognize as his friendlier tone. "Speaking of that job I left behind, aren't you supposed to be working at it right now?"

"Uh, well it's related to that actually." Soos replied, his nervousness becoming much more transparent now. "I was wondering if you'd maybe take a look around the back of the Shack? All the customers are scared away."

"This better not be another dog looking at you funny." Stan replies grumpily before letting the former handyman lead him around the building. When he spoke next though, his tone was noticeably lighter. "So, how were things running before this disturbance today?"

If Soos has taken any offense at Stan's first dismissive comment he didn't show it, and quickly began talking about the earlier day with honest enthusiasm. "Oh, it was great as always. Every day running the Mystery Shack is a dream come true Miste... errr, I mean Stan." With a particularly pleased tone, he added "Of course, the dream has only gotten better since Mabel came back so both Mystery Twins are living under the roof again! She really spiced up an earlier tour group, we got a lot out of them in the gift shop."

Stan felt a genuinely proud and affectionate smile grow on his face at this explanation, but Soos' words ended up bringing up a whole slog of troubling thoughts as well. "Yeah, the twins back together really completes the whole dream thing, doesn't it?" He said in a jokey tone, while also feeling a twinge cross his heart while remembering how broken up Mabel had been after Dipper and Ford left through the portal again. With a rare tone of regret, Stan added "Hey, Soos? I'm... I'm sorry you've still got to have us bumming around the place."

"Oh, it's no problem Stan!" Soos replied without a shred of hesitation and total sincerity. "I mean, if it wasn't for the entire Pines family I wouldn't even be in this wonderful place, and you are all very helpful and supportive. And that panic room you added to me and Melody's place? AND the one you built for abuelita!?" Soos pauses to kiss two fingers and a thumb as an indication of quality. "A real masterpiece."

"Yeah yeah, it's just... this wasn't how it was supposed to be, get it?" Stan asked, sounding more genuinely troubled and lost now, prompting both men to come to a stop right before turning the corner to the back of the Shack. Throwing his hands up in confusion, Stan explained that "You know, it was supposed to be me and Ford and the open seas at this point, traveling the world and stuff! Dipper and Mabel would be living their own lives together, away from this crazy shithole!" Letting out a sigh, he wearily added "It seems like we always end up drawn back here though..."

Soos' face registered a mild amount of shock at Stan's profanity, though not at the use itself, as during that first summer the old man had no problem swearing for real when it was just him and the handyman. Rather, it was the fact that such a strong epitaph was directed at the town itself which surprised him. "I mean, what's wrong with that? Gravity Falls is a lovely little town, isn't it?"

"It's a shithole Soos, and a dangerous one at that." Stan said bluntly and without a hint of sarcasm, and to his credit Soos didn't take it poorly, looking at his former employer with curiosity more than anything else, and as hoped the old man was quick to explain himself via rant. "People who stay here too long get hurt Soos, don't you get it!? Those Blind Eye freaks Dipper told me about managed to turn the entire town into barely functional idiots, monsters rove the woods, and they threw an eight year old in prison! Sure it was Gideon but even I realize how fucked up that is from from a legal perspective! What the hell is wrong with this place!?"

After letting out a low, weary sigh, Stan added that "You know sometimes I wish that no member of the Pines family had ever set foot in this town..."

Although Stan didn't mention it, because he disliked discussing the subject at all even all these years and a happy ending later, Soos knew that his brother's disappearance into the portal and then return to research on the subject was another example from Stan's list. _"But then I never would have met you Mister Pines..." _Thought Soos for a flashing moment, before arguing _"He's just upset and worried right now, and besides I can sort of understand his point" _back at himself to quell that unhappy thought.

"Alright, enough of my ranting, what's the problem Soos?" Stan asked, and in response the handyman froze up, now genuinely unsure if he should bother the elder Pines with this issue at this moment. However, the younger man's large, soft eyes betrayed him. "It's right behind me, isn't it?"

When Stan turned around, he finally caught sight of his twin brother wandering around in a daze, his eyes seeming to be glowing and glazed over at the same time. Besides the garbled and frightening muttering Ford was generating, it was obvious why the tourists had been driven away: The elder scientist was missing his long coat and undershirt, and appareared to be damp all over his body.

"Thank you for coming to get me Soos." Stan said simply before striding you towards his brother, sending the unspoken message that he wanted to handle this alone. Soos, for his part, withdrew respectfully.

"Hey, Poindexter, what's a matter? Are you tweaking on space dust or something?" Stan asked, tone rough but a note of concern cracking through. He gently put a hand on his brother's shoulder, and while Ford's head did snap to over to glare at Stan, the expression instantly softened with recognition.

Stan, despite himself, shivered a little. The last time Ford had looked at him like he did for a fleeting moment, he had been convinced his twin had come to steal his eyeballs, despite having summoned Stan himself.

"Ah, yes, Stanley, hello." Ford said, words punctuated by uncontrollable twitching and his eyes shifting to stare at something on his twin'a shoulder that didn't exist. "How did you get to Mewni? Never mind, not important, I'm going to go shoot the devil and I need your help Stanley. Not the dorito devil though. Much... much more normal looking one, probably has cheap looking horns on..."

Taking a moment to blink, Stan put his other hand on Ford's other shoulder and began to hustle him back toward's the Shack. "I need to get you inside."

* * *

"You know brother, you always did have a way with this stuff."

The older two Pines twins were inside Ford's old room inside the Mystery Shack, closed off and away from the business section of the building. The two were reclining in a pair of time worn but still comfortable lounging chairs, a small nightstand with an ash tray atop it between them. The air was smokey with the released fumes of the home made cigarette they were passing back and forth, and both twins seemed far more relaxed now, Ford in particular seeming much less tense and paranoid, and also wearing a shirt again.

"I told you it'd help you ride out whatever comedown you were on with your... magic space drugs or whatever is you do these days..." Stan replied before taking a long hit. Letting out an exhale of smoke that turned into a brief coughing fit, the old con artist chuckled and said "I've got experince, after all. You think I could afford this whole building JUST by swindling tourists with chintzy crap?" Then, after another hit, he added "Nope! Huge pot farm out in the woods paid for this mortgage. Less cops and deer to worry about but the gnomes will rob you blind if you don't reset your bear traps regularly..."

Ford, who took a moment to remove his glasses and rub his eyes, added in a complimentary tone "I mean, ever since high school, you could uh... really make the most of it." before accepting the passed joint and taking a fresh hit himself. Across from him, Stan chuckled again.

"Hehe, wanna know what my old secret was back then?" He asked, before going into his answer. "Whenever we'd score some, the bits I'd turn around and sell were watered down with dad's tobacco residue, stolen cafeteria lettuce and shoplifted cooking herbs. The good stuff was just for you and me!" Letting out a content sigh, Stan mused "Man, those were good times."

"No they weren't Stanley, those times were fucking terrible."

"HA! Got me on that one Sixer. That's why people say you got the brains out of the two of us!" Stan answered in an amused tone, took the joint back and took a small hit off it. After a moment, he looked much more somber. "Ford, what are you doing back here? Is Dipper alright?"

"Mason is in perfectly safe hands." Ford replied quickly and sharply. For all of the relaxation the smoking had put over the scientist's body and mind, he was still able to recall and address the matter of his apprentice's safety with crisp clarity. "Besides Pacifica being with him we've found strong and trustworthy allies on Mewni, and I'm sure she'll keep him safe. I'll be back soon enough though, once I remember... just why I came back to Earth. Hmm..."

Stanley blinked a few times, processing what had been said before asking aloud "Is... is that Dipper's real name?"

"As long as you mean Mason instead of Mewni, then yes."

The older pair of twins snapped to the room's door as Mabel simply walked in on the two of them, back in her original body. Instead of her usual tendency to walk into the room upright, confident and practically radiating light into her new location, Mabel was currently walking with a heavy, burdened lurch.

"M...Mabel! Pumpkin, uh, me and your great uncle were, uh..."

"I'm a teenage delinquent who lives in California Grunkle Stan, I know what weed is." Mabel responded, voice still sharper than usual but with a small lightening up in comparison to the previous line, a result of her being genuinely happy to see her older relatives despite the circumstances. Without hesitation, she sat herself down on a third chair in the room and addressed her elders with a tired expression and tone of voice. "Come one, pass it to the left."

Both Grunkles looked at each other with an expression of concern, which only got deeper and more serious as they looked back at her and noticed the bruises forming on her face. "Mabel... what happened to you? Are you okay?" Stan asked, his voice completely serious now.

"No, everything's good, just had another run in with the wonders of Gravity Falls." She said in a harshly cynical tone of voice both older men would expect from Dipper instead. However, instead of staying harsh and angry, her expression quickly became sad. "...Why do you guys do this Grunkle Ford?" Mabel asked, her tone expressing deep, confused sorrow. "Is living with me still somehow worse than doing stuff like this every day of his life?"

Both Grunkles were quiet for awhile after this, both trying to process how to respond to the question in the most supportive way possible. Ford was ultimately the first to speak. "Mabel... no matter what else has happened today or what happens next, I want you to know you are safe here. If anything is after you, we will keep you safe. You have my word on that."

"Nothing is wrong though! I saved the ding dong day!" Mabel yelled in frustration, throwing her arms up above her before taking a deep, angry inhale of the room's smokey air. "I saved the day, killed a renegade secret agent, stopped a drug ring from setting up shop in Gravity Falls and basically became friends with those two government guys you mind wiped right after you came out of the portal Ford! By the standards of me and Dipper's adventures here in town, today was a huge success!" Sinking into her chair, Mabel muttered, much more quietly and too herself, "...So why do I feel so bad about it?"

"Oh pumpkin..." Stan breathed sadly, before standing up and crossing the room to hug his great niece without hesitation. Mabel, despite her dour mood, was quick to reciprocate, feeling genuinely warm and happy for a moment as her beloved great uncle hugged her. Still in his chair, Ford had a more complicated but still sorrowful look on his face. Conflict was raging in his mind but he had come to his decision by the time the two had separated, and he was totally certain in making it. _"Mason... you can take care of yourself for awhile, right? The princess will keep you safe." _He briefly wondered, before the last flicker of doubt was extinguished with a final realization. _"Even if he can't, he'd demand I turn around and help his sister instead."_

Rising from his chair, Ford crossed the room and joined the hug, wrapping his arms around his brother and great niece. It felt easy, natural, and not even Stan had some much as a grumble about having to enter a hug again so soon. The three took even more time to separate than the two had, and by the end of it Mabel had a pained but genuine smile back.

Once everyone had settled back into their chairs, Grunkle Stan passed the remaining joint over to Mabel without a moment of hesitation while Grunkle Ford took a soft, patient tone and expression and asked "Alright Mabel, when you're ready to talk about it, could you tell us what happened?"


End file.
